Seachem Excel

[fry_lover]

I read somewhere today that it can kill of the plant elodea, and i have some elodea in my tank, got it recently to float at top and protect the fry in my community tank.

My tank is 300 litres, and is doing really well (plant wise) but i just keep basic plants, as i dont use co2 and i live in a hard water area. My plants are java fern, moss balls, onions plants, amazon sword, vallis and hygraphilia with some floating riccia also

I use Seachem Flourish and Excel and generally under dose anyway.

Flourish says to add 5ml for each 250 litres once or twice a week. I tend to do it about every 7-10 days

As for the Excel it says to dose 1x cap for every 200 litres every 1-2 days. I usually just do 1x cap every 7-10 days, so am really under-dosing, didnt know how much i was under-dosing until i read the label

QUESTION: if i putting so little Excel in my tank, is it even worth using it

QUESTION: is Excel a safe product, i mean, how comes it kills certain plants? I dont buy plant food/enhancers to kill ANY plants

 

[nry]

Check out this link:

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutaraldehyde

It explains things better than I can!

 

[Themuleous]

Yes it is safe

It seems to kill thread type plants, which most algae is. However is also kills my hornwort.

Excellent link Nry

 

[nry]

Yes it is safe

It seems to kill thread type plants, which most algae is. However is also kills my hornwort.

Excellent link Nry

Just recycling one passed to me on here ages ago

 

[icliao]

Unfortunately excel doesn't just kill algae.
It killed more than 10 of my neon and a rummy nose.
Most other fish are unaffected.
It also rots the tip of the leafs to a few of my plants.
I heard it can also harm shrimps.

 

[nry]

At normal dose I've never heard of it affecting fish, shrimp sometimes though?

 

[fry_lover]

i poured my excel down the sink the other day, half a big bottle, did loads of reading on internet, lots of borwsing of other peoples experiences on forums, i havent really got any horror stories to tell, but i am not waiting for one to happen i ditched the stuff, was only using a very small dose anyway as the LFS sweared by it if you dont use carbon dioxide for your planted set-up

 

[nry]

Shame you didn't advertise it on here FOC, that was a big bottle to throw half away, a few people keep asking for some! You can use it alongside a modified Estimative Index dosing scheme and I think the suggestion is that if CO2 injection is '100%' then Excel is around '50%' which is not bad really, if you have decent light but no CO2 then it is a decent consideration.