Markl

A couple of weeks ago I put in way too much (wayyy too much) when I had no fish in the tank. All my algae died, but unfortunately so did my dwarf sag, val and Java moss. The sag has come back and the val, moss and algae are still gone.

Noddy65

Some trials on using gluteraldehyde. Seems to work a treat.

http://www.aquariumlife.com.au/showt...?t=2407&page=5

Mike

mrakhnyansky

Please take your time to read and find out what is main ingredient in Flourish Excel ... and you'll understand why it helps with an algae problems. Take look at the Seachem site that describes main ingredient of Seachem Excel http://www.seachem.com/support/MSDS.pdf. THIS IS GLUTARALDEHIDE and also read the site that describes chemical properties of this ingredient: http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ohb/HESIS/glutaral.htm
You'll find out that this chemical harms the fish, it kills the algal cells this is disinfectant that is used in hospitals. Good luck, MRAKH

Questin

Excel worked for me, thanks for the thread.

I have 125 gallon that I left alone for a year or two, then one day I got all interested in it again and got the entire Flourish line of products to dump into it (all except Excel). Got a new filter for it, new CO2 system, I went crazy. I moved all the plants around as well and got new fish.

Next thing I know, there was an explosion of BBA in the tank, of epidemic proportions hehe. My god, it got over just about everything in the tank, including the outlet. It was a bit of a nightmare, I just did too much at once.

So the first thing I did was stop will all the new chemicals. I was not sure what part of all the things I did caused this so I stopped the chemicals, and I also added phosphate remover to the tank just to clean up everything I could. A week later I went to work on a little CO2 problem I was having and then it was a constant 6.7 and then I noticed that the BBA stopped growing on new plants. In some areas I even saw the BBA turning white, so I figured the problem was solved.

Well the problem was solved, but there was an after effect, all the BBA that was already in the tank. It was not dieing off and going away like I was hoping, and it was growing in areas it was already on. I went a few weeks with just my no chemicals and CO2 of 6.7 but that was not killing the BBA, it just kept it from growing on new growth. It looked funny really, I had all these old leaves with BBA on it, but all the new growth in the tank was nice and green and zero BBA.

So I took the new step, and that was the Excel. I did not do what a lot of people did, I tried to take it easy. The first time I used it I did the one cap full for every 10 gallons thing. I did this 3 days in a row, and then I noticed some of the BBA turning red. Day 4 of the one cap full every 10 gallons really turned things red, and it was all of the BBA that was turning red now.

This Excel really does the trick, and I waited about a month before going to it. I tried to solve the problem with just low pH (6.7) but it was not doing the job. Day 5 of one cap full every 10 gallons has come and gone, and its time to do a major water change, the redness will be taken out.

With 125 gallon tank, its hard to just cut all the BBA off. That was something I did try and it was not working. Every time I tried something new, I would try it for a week or two before moving on to the next. This whole process took me about 3 months to go thru before trying Excel. I believe in a natural approach to everything in my tanks and Excel is not natural, but in the end it worked in as little as 3 days.

To give you an idea of what I have in the tank here is a list.

Plants
Anubias, Anubias Nana. Bacopa, Glosso, Brazilian Pennywort, Vals, Dwarf Java, Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata 'Cuba', Crinum calamistratum, Purple Cabomba, HC, Tiger Lotus.

Fish
35 Rummynoses, 10 Congo Tetras, 4 angels, 1 Red-Lined Barb, 1 SAE, 3 Striata Botia, 3 Amano Shrimp (well I use to have a lot more, but the Congos ate them all when I put them in. Live and learn) 11 ottos.

Nothing from either list died because of the excel, but it’s a big tank, so its really hard to tell if I lost one or two things, but you get the idea.

wesknox

Careful on the o.d., chaps. 3x OD took out 3 large rainbowfish and a chinese algae eater. Tumor on one other large rainbow now. On the plus side...it absolutely decimated black brush algae!!! (you know...the stuff that looks like miniature sea urchins). Nothing else would even touch it (Hydrogen Peroxide would turn it red for a few days, but not kill it). Excel turned it pale chartruese in a couple of days and it's disintegrated almost completely. I got my infection from a piece of driftwood I bought from a local fish store. Now, I'm planning on using it to soak everything non-living that goes into my tank.

gpodio

That's a shame you lost some fish in the process!

Just like with H2O2, I would suggest people try the spot treatment first, ie. use a syringe or similar to squirt the product directly on the algae. This allows you to subject the algae to an even stronger concentration, without going over the recommended dose for the entire volume of the tank. It may take a little longer as you will be killing smaller patches at a time... if you repeat this daily, using no more than 2x the recommended dose, you should see the advantages of both spot and whole tank treatment combined with less risk compared to higher concentrations.

Regards
Giancarlo Podio

andrew__

Well, that was a long read (with most of the same questions and answers every 3-6 pages ) and I've got a question. A bunch of times people have said things like "It's not CO2 so fish won't die from low oxygen levels" etc, however on page 6:

So is this last sentence not correct or is CO2 being produced at low enough concentrations that everyone dismisses it off hand?

Anyway, This thread was a good read, going to be starting to use Excel for plant growth purposes at Seachem's suggested dose, I'll let you know if I start to see an impact on algae at that point.

gpodio

Andrew, first off, I think it's important to dismiss the oxygen myth... CO2 does not displace oxygen in the water molecule as these two gasses are stored in different 'areas' of the molecule itself. So this has never been an issue, the effect CO2 has on O2 levels within a water molecule is neglectable. Above a certain concentration, CO2 levels themselves become toxic.

When it comes to Excel, it's the product itself (a disinfectant basically) that can pose a direct danger at certain concentrations. The organic carbon becomes available once bacteria have broken down Excel into simpler forms. This form of carbon is unlike CO2 gas, it does not effect PH for example. Unsure of what it effects, if anything, but the two are quite different. My guess is that when Excel is mistakenly over-overdosed, it's the glutaraldehyde that is responsible for any problems rather than the amount of organic carbon that will become available shortly after.

Giancarlo Podio

oregon aqua

after reading this whole post ahhhhhh i am going to do the excel treatment. im posting this msg. for to show this http://www.aquabotanic.com/carbon.html i find the last question and awnser to be the clincher for me
"Dr. Greg Morin, Research Director of Seachem Labs
> Can algae feed on Excel?
No. I'm sure this may raise a few eyebrows ;-) since at face value
this would be a reasonable expectation. But, for reasons Uncle Sam
won't let us discuss, all I can say is that algae can't feed on Excel
and I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to deduce why this
is the case (big picture folks, no chemistry involved ;-).

Gregory Morin, Ph.D. ~~~~~~~Research Director~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seachem Laboratories, Inc. www.seachem.com 888-SEACHEM "

gpodio

That's actually the article that got me looking for the same answer...

Now that we know the form or carbon that is made available by the product, we just need to know if algae is capable of performing the same function the plants are performing in order to utilize it. Similar concept I imagine to the ammonia Vs nitrates as a nitrogen source, where algae struggle to "denitrify" (if we can call it that) nitrates internally the same way plants do.

But he did say "no chemistry involved"...