fishyerik

"&" is code for the "&"-sign, slight computer-error.

Gomer

Shrimp all seem ok.

Seachem recommends 5ml/10g at major water changes and 1ml/10g daily. This works out to 15ml and 3ml/day. Over a week, it is a total of 33ml. I dose a total of 45 over a week with 40-50% weekly water changes. Instead of hitting the algae with a 45cal followed by a pellet gun daily, I hit it 3 times a week with a 45cal.

I am out of excel now but will have more this time next week (big als order) and will continue the dosing and report back.

plantbrain

So your shrimp are fine and other fish as well?
Did you try this on that algae tank you entered??
I need some algae to work with and it'll be awhile before I have that chance.

I find it interesting and have an idea of the mode of action.
Regards,
Tom Barr

John P.

-Tuesday I dosed 11 mL in my 26-G
-Wednesday I dosed 3 mL
-Today (Thursday) I does 8 mL

One adult female (pregnant) Cherry Shrimp is barely clinging to life right now.* The rest of the shrimp (~30+) are perfectly fine & normal. 15 Cardinal Tetras, 3 Harlequin Rasboras, and 2 Otos all fine, too.

Could be a coincidence. I've always noted that the pregnant shrimp sometimes die for seemingly no reason. However, I've recently bumped up my CO2 levels and increased my fert dosage, too. So who knows.

* I have her out of the tank w/a water change & aeration. This is craziness!

Gomer

My shrimp are perfectly fine. I had some fish die due to something unrelated. An order of fish from AZ gardens coinciced with an outbreak of Saprolegnia (?). Last time I did excel dosing with a healthy fish tank, no casualties whatsoever.

This is done on the algae tank. The clado is much more resistant to the excel than the BBA (virtually of it in the tank is now a heu of red), but it is effected. Also need to monitor the staghorn that also is in there. I forgot to look for it (perhaps cause it was already effected and gone so I didn't notice it?_

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

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.