Is Flourish Excel Safe?

[Plecc]

Hi,
Is Seachem Flourish Excel safe for invertebrate's?

i cant find any ingredients info on the bottle or online, the only caution is not to overdose.
Which i see many doing to combat algae, so it has to be fairly safe.

 

[FishFanatic04]

I had some issues using it, but only with a few plants melting. My fish seemed fine.

 

[Plecc]

OMG, what do you mean by melting?
My main concern is if it contains copper it will kill my shrimp for sure!
I don't think traces of copper effect fish like it does invertebrate's.

 

[FishFanatic04]

copper isn't good for plants. It won't be in excel. A few plants don't do as well with excel. Anacharis didn't for me, and I've seen people say that it melt sthei vallis. But all of my other plants were fine and lovely!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

copper isn't good for plants.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Copper (Cu) is an essential nutrient for plant growth, but because only a small amount is needed, it is classified as a micronutrient.

from http/www.extension...ems/DC6790.html

Copper exisits in several forms. Some are highly toxic to all life, others are essential to a lot of life. The form and amount of copper found in aquarium trace mixes is not going to harm inverts or you would rarely see them in planted tanks.

The form and amount of copper in fish meds will definitely kill inverts.

The is something in the biology of a few aquatic plants which causes Excel to have an adverse affect of them, anachris and vals are two.

Excel is basically glutaraldehyde - Google it. Those who advocate large overdosing of Excel for algae crontrol may have a change of opinion if they do.) As usual I will get you started out http/www.oscarfish...chem-excel.html

I use Excel in tanks with both shrimp and snails and have for many years. I dose according to the directions.

Edited to correct having pasted the wrong thing into the first quote.

 

[FishFanatic04]

What's with the first quote?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Sorry was a wrong copy past, I have edited it as noted above.

 

[Plecc]

Thanks for the feedback,

This is what i was worried about, that flourish excel would possibly be OK for a shrimp on recommended dosing.
But not so good when overdosing to combat Black Beard Algae.
I have had a few tufts of BBA in this tank for the last few years, its no big problem.
I chose to leave it be and not add any treatments as the tank contains delicate fish and inverts.
But recently it has began growing on the front legs and feelers of my bamboo shrimp, this a problem.
After reading http/www.oscarfish...chem-excel.html
Wow....
It doesn't look like excel is the best thing for me to use.
Which puts me back to square one

What are my options for dealing with this?

 

[alihar]

I've had a free plants melt using it and my snails withdrew into their shells and were very lethargic for a few days after dosing.

 

[Livewire88]

I dose Excel in my tank every day and all my shrimp and Snails are fine and healthy.

 

[Plecc]

Are you using the recommended dosage on the bottle?
Have you ever overdosed by mistake or to combat algae?

 

[CezzaXV]

I dose using the recommended dosing on the bottle and my bamboo shrimp and apple snails are fine.

 

[m_attt]

Are you using the recommended dosage on the bottle?
Have you ever overdosed by mistake or to combat algae?

rather than continuous over dosing to rid algae, have a read of the algae articles and sort the cause

I have used easycarbo at least 4x strength on my bigger tank before swapping to gas, depends what shrimp you have, cherrys dont mind and bred well, but apperntly crystal reds will breed slow.

 

[Plecc]

Thanks for the replies,

Sry Ma_ttt do you mind directing me to the BBA resources on this site, I'm not having much luck finding them!

After doing some more research, I'm even more confused than i was before

Low flow areas and fluctuating CO2 appear to be the biggest cause for most people, in my tank the algae only appears in the highest flow areas.
The tank is only 50L and being filtered by a Fluval 105 so the flow rate is very high across the whole tank.
As far as CO2 fluctuation goes, i think the only causes of this could be water changes and the plants cycling through night and day. But not too sure.
I cant rely stop doing water changes and i defiantly don't want plastic plants.

Can BBA still be an issue in non planted tanks? or does it only appear in planted aquariums?

My display tank has never had an issue with BBA, for some reason the water chemistry must be different.
So, I was wondering if i put the shrimp into this tank, would it kill the algae off because of the new environment?
Or just risk spreading the spores to my other tank?

 

[james_fish]

I used Flourish Excel in a tank with microrasbora's, cherry shrimp, amano's & Assassin Snails. I used the recommended dose on the bottle, Don't overdose this product in a tank with invertebrates in but you should be fine with the recommended dose

P.S My Cherries bred many times whilst using FE

James.