plantbrain

Interesting to note the selective effects on the BBA vs the Cladophora.
I'll tell you this much, there is nothing in the literature about BBA/Cladpohora and aquatic vascular plant effects/impacts or anything closely related.


Regards,
Tom Barr

chiahead

I started overdosing the excel to see if it would help my thread/hair algae problem. It has really helped, the algae is only on a few leaves now. My problem is that I am getting a cloudy tank now. Is this normal on the overdosing of Excel? I assume I should hold off until the cloudyness dissappears. I cant find any statements relating to this issue though.

pineapple

I noticed that cloudiness only came about as a result of persistent use of Flourish Excel in doses higher than those recommended by Seachem - such as when used in an attempt to kill off algae. I have soft water and consider it to be a bit more sensitive. My interpretation is that continual high doses have an effect on the biological filtration as supplied by a cannister filter, for instance. Stopping the over-dosing or perhaps lowering the dosage quantity will restore the water quality plus or minus a water change.

Consider that using overdoses of Flourish Excel to rid an aquarium of algae is only a quick fix. The source of the problem in the first place needs to be addressed.

The same can be said for using H2O2 - hydrogen peroxide.

Andrew Cribb

turtlehead

after you od on excel the tank will get a little cloudy, but it does kill off the algae particularly fuzz and green spot algae, haven't seen it for about a week now.

robitreef

Another question for all of you who are having these algae problems.... what type of water are you using? Straight tap water or RO/DI?

Simpte 27

I tried straight tap but that was extremely hard (gh of 33+) So I switched to straight R.O. on the first 3 water changes. Now I use a mixture of 80% R.O. and 20 % tap. My tap has nitrates of 6 also. It so hard it leaves sediment in the bottom of a glass if left overnight. I had a BBA problem which was probably introduced through infected plants but none since.

robitreef

Simpte 27,

Are you using CO2 in your tank? I use all RO/DI, but I want to switch to a CO2 unit, and I don't want my pH to decrease drastically. Are you adding buffer to balance your pH or is the tap doing the trick. Was the algae more problematic when you used all tap vs. RO/DI?

JLudwig

Hey gang... did a 3x dose at a change (my CO2 regulator broke over the holidays!) and boy did this work... got the clouding, looked to be a bacterial explosion to me, ran my UV for a few days, everything cleared up now. It did almost nuke my Riccia, Hemianthus m. was effected a little bit but it knocked a huge BBA infestation back off. Lost a Corydoras, laboured breathing from some others but after another change they recovered nicely... 3x might be a little much, perhaps a double dose is more reasonable.

Oddly enough my plants stopped perling when the levels were really high but that wasn't just lack of light, there was something else "fishy" going on altho growth rates were otherwise excellent. As already mentioned, this isn't a long term fix but if something catastrophic happens this can speed recovery time and it has cleared established BBA (this was a huge problem for me, I've been able to out-grow everything other type of algae). In similar situations like this I've also used AlgaeFix at recommended dosage and I know of someone else using copper (did not kill shrimp! YMMV) so I think we now have three solid selective weapons for recovering from a slipup.

Jeff

daddyo72

Fascinating! I'm learning quite a lot. I'm quickly learning there is no substitute for flourish.

Robert B

I also did the 3x dose for two weeks and the tank is almost algae free now. I was adding 15ml every other day to my 30 gallon and this tank was really bad with algae. It didn't really seem to kill the algae but it made it very easy to remove. My mayaca was completely covered in slimely hair algae and I was able to remove all of it at once. It all came out in one big handful. I had ereocaluans that were covered in BBA and I was able to just wave my hand above them and 95% of the BBA just fell right off the plants. The only plants that seemed not to like the excel was my Tonina sp. belem but it may have been shading that was causing the problems with them and not the excel because they are looking fine now.

I will try to put up some before and after pics early next week.

Robert. (bobo31)