Warning ** Flourish Excel**

[jonny]

Guys,

It's a sad day in my house today.

Last night i decided to add some flourish excel to my malawi tank to help with a small algae problem. I have used this stuff before with trops and it worked great.
BUT
this morning i came down to 7 dead fish..... I am gutted.

I have just done a 75% water change to try and stem the death rate but it dosen't look good. I followed the standard OD procedure.

Jon

 

[demonmagus]

strange. are you sure it is the flourish? I dont know if it's toxic to fish but if you followed the instructions...

 

[tat2life]

sorry to hear that mate same kind of thing happend to me once when i kept piranhas. had 4 of them woke up and 2 dead, water was murky as hell.. not sure why because it was recently cleaned and perfectly fine the same day it happend. i managed to catch 2 piranhas and put them in a bucket so they survived. have you got a backup tank set up for you surviving fish ? last resort is making up a bucket or something

 

[jonny]

strange. are you sure it is the flourish? I dont know if it's toxic to fish but if you followed the instructions...

Well if it wasn't it was a bloody strange. Within 10 mins of adding the flourish they were all in on mass cluster thrashing about in a top corner.
It does say on the bottle not to overdose but we all know that you can to beat algae.
As far as OD'ing i added 40ml to a 200L tank which is 5 times the normal dose. This should then have been dropped to 9ml per day for the next week or two.

Anyway, after the water change they are all looking good and acting normally.

You live and learn.

 

[kribensis12]

I dont think you should have overdosed. I thouhgt floursh excelled was supposed to make algea grow, not die?

 

[WaterBender1995]

Now when you see people post, "I dont use any chemicals in my tanks" you'll know first hand why!

 

[nadajdui]

Thanks for putting this topic up. I use flourish excel, but I've never overdosed, and now I won't! I hope that in the future everything goes well.

 

[BBrain]

As far as OD'ing i added 40ml to a 200L tank which is 5 times the normal dose. This should then have been dropped to 9ml per day for the next week or two.

I'm sorry you lost some fish.

Firstly, I'm wondering about your dosages.
My bottle says inital dose is 5 ml per 40 l, followed by 5 ml per 200 l.
So for your 200 l tank, that's 25 ml initially, followed by 5 ml.
If you overdose by 5 times, the initial dose would be 125 ml.
So I'm confused about this.
(BTW, I understand the initial dose for algae control is 2 to 3 times the normal dose.)

A couple of other considerations:

You should never add chemicals to a tank at night. Only do it when you have at least several hours to observe your fishes' reaction.

What are the conditions in your tank? (Water chemistry, cleanliness, etc.). Perhaps your fish were already stressed, and the Excel just pushed them over the edge.

 

[jonny]

As far as OD'ing i added 40ml to a 200L tank which is 5 times the normal dose. This should then have been dropped to 9ml per day for the next week or two.

I'm sorry you lost some fish.

Firstly, I'm wondering about your dosages.
My bottle says inital dose is 5 ml per 40 l, followed by 5 ml per 200 l.
So for your 200 l tank, that's 25 ml initially, followed by 5 ml.
If you overdose by 5 times, the initial dose would be 125 ml.
So I'm confused about this.
(BTW, I understand the initial dose for algae control is 2 to 3 times the normal dose.)

A couple of other considerations:

You should never add chemicals to a tank at night. Only do it when you have at least several hours to observe your fishes' reaction.

What are the conditions in your tank? (Water chemistry, cleanliness, etc.). Perhaps your fish were already stressed, and the Excel just pushed them over the edge.

Yes, sorry, you are quite right...my maths is a little rusty.
5x would 125ml ........ Thank the lord i didn't add that much. I OD'ed by only 2-3x it seems.

Conditions in the tank are fine, all essentials are at nil with nitrate at around 40ppm.

I think the only stressed fish in there is a small platy......yes i know he shouldn't be there but he just won't let me catch him. He has been there quite a while there and the malawi's don't seem to bother him at all.

 

[Teelie]

I've never had a problem with Excel and fish though it supposedly can "melt" some types of plants so I only use it occasionally with my Java Moss.

 

[afishdude]

y did you OD when it says not to? they say "do not over dose" for a reason you no.

 

[fry_lover]

I poured half a bottle of Excel down the sink the other day, i did a thread on here about it recently, and asked for some feedback, didnt get much activity on the thread, but i spend a few hours on the internet, browsing other forums and any articles i could find, my interest was aroused solely because i heard it "kills" the plant Elodea, Hornwort and certain moss plants which i have in my tank. I thought i be damned if i am putting a plant aid in my tank that kills plants. After reading it up, i didnt think it was worth the risk and chucked the stuff. I was under dosing anyway, adding a small bit every 10-14 days when bottle actually says every other day. I also read a bout various stories of fish dying after peeps had used it (although its hard to evidence this, other factors could and prob were involved)

I still use Seachem Flourish, i figure my plants are doing great and i only used a tiny bit of the Excel as i said, so got rid of that sucker!!!

Sorry to hear of your loss

 

[Teelie]

Flourish (no Excel) does seem to work better anyways IMO and doesn't have the potential to harm fish or plants Excel might.