Flourish Excel

[scotty]

going to overdose with flourish excel today in my tank,has anyone had experience in doing this,and how much should i use in a 125 litre tank?
its to kill off my staghorn algae
cheers
scott

 

[lljdma06]

going to overdose with flourish excel today in my tank,has anyone had experience in doing this,and how much should i use in a 125 litre tank?

cheers
scott

Why are you overdosing Excel? What plants do you have in your tank?

llj

 

[scotty]

have read,its a good way to kill staghorn algae,tried everything else

 

[lljdma06]

have read,its a good way to kill staghorn algae,tried everything else

It does work, but some plants do not take well to Excel overdosing.

 

[scotty]

i have
limnophila sessiliflora

anubias nana (golden

hedyotis salzmannii

in my tank,will they be ok,and how much should i put in?

 

[scotty]

anyone?

 

[Dave Spencer]

going to overdose with flourish excel today in my tank,has anyone had experience in doing this,and how much should i use in a 125 litre tank?
its to kill off my staghorn algae
cheers
scott

Scott, you are approaching the problem, and the purpose of Excel from the wrong angle. Why do you have stag horn? Because your tank is carbon limited through either too much light causing a higher carbon demand from your plants, or CO2 is degassing from your water to a point where the carbon available is insufficient.

If your tank is low light with slow growth, too regular water changes may be causing fluctuations in carbon availability, which may trigger stag horn.

Adding Excel supplies carbon via the gluteraldehyde available in the Excel, hopefully making it non limiting to the plants. This will remove the trigger for a stag horn bloom, and prevent it from constantly reappearing. The fact that Excel can kill the established algae directly is a fortunate aside.

Use Excel to cure the cause, not as a sticking plaster to hide the symptoms as they appear. There should be no need to overdose.

 

[ian]

sorry to hyjack Scotty, so how much do you dose then Dave, if the CO2 is being degassed? Is the dosage on the bottle just a safe dosage?

also is there any way of measuring the CO2 level from bottled CO2?

 

[scotty]

my tank gets plenty of natural sunlight,my tank lights are only on for 2hrs a night,i have great plant growth,need to prune at least every 3 weeks at the moment,i removed my diy co2 kit a few weeks ago,just can't get rid of the staghorn algae,i have put in the excel,put it in before you posted,so i hope everything will be ok.
any further advice would be most welcome

cheers
scott

 

[Rlon35]

Just a caveat based on my experience. Never, and I mean never, OD Excel when you have Rams.

 

[scotty]

Just a caveat based on my experience. Never, and I mean never, OD Excel when you have Rams.
[/quote
just a warning then,thanks

 

[Dave Spencer]

....i removed my diy co2 kit a few weeks ago,just can't get rid of the staghorn....
scott

And there you have your carbon problem.

You can`t just take CO2 away like that, and not expect your plants to start suffering. Hopefully, the Excel will be adequate enough to replace the DIY.

 

[ian]

I have od easycarbo for the same problem and it didn't affect anything, the shrimp didn't even mind.

 

[scotty]

the co2 kit was running when the staghorn algae was there,i was told to remove it as there might be too much of a fluctuation of co2 going in,and this was maybe the cause of the staghorn algae

 

[lljdma06]

the co2 kit was running when the staghorn algae was there,i was told to remove it as there might be too much of a fluctuation of co2 going in,and this was maybe the cause of the staghorn algae

I forget, how were you measuring your CO2 levels? It is completely possible to get stable levels of CO2 with DIY in a small tank if you staggard two mixes, have a good diffusor, and use a dropchecker to measure your levels. Sorry if this seems repetative.

Dave is absolutely right. Address the cause rather than apply a cover-up solution. You could opt to dose Excel as your source of Carbon rather than use fermentation, but the disadvantage is that you cannot measure the levels and it will take a while to figure out which dosing is right for you. Really pressurized is best, but there are a few of us cheapskates out there who resist and still use fermentation very effectively. If the lighting levels are low enough, then ditch CO2 all together, but then your waterchanges become far less frequent and far smaller. It no fault of anyone here, the weekly waterchange dogma is very important to non-planted tanks. With planted tanks, the rules get bent to create the environment that is best for the plants. Of course, the fish benefit from such an environment as well.

llj