Will Flourish Excel And Trace Be Enough To Keep Plants Going?

[simonas]

I;m a plant newbie and am trying to get plants growing in my new discus set up.

I have vallis normal and giant, lotus, Echinodorus Ozelot and Amazons plus a Windelow fern. I had 3 54watt t5's but I;ve switched one off and reduced the time on to 7 hours from 9. I;ve also increased flow as I was getting too much algae and my plants look rough after only a couple of weeks

The lotus leaves look less red and strong, the windelow and ozelot has algae on it and the swords look poor.

I have now bought a bottle of each of the flourish excel and trace. Will these two be enough to make my plants grow? I don;t want to invest in CO2 but I;d like a nice plabted set up like I see in the pics on this forum

If the flourish is not that good please recomend what I should use and any other tips would be most welcome

thanks Simon

 

[waterdrop]

Hi simonas, I'm also a plant newbie (at least, of the past 3 years while I've been trying to lay a groundwork for understanding it) so take my comments with grain of salt and obviously wait for some of the experienced ones here.

I have found Seachem Flourish Excel and Flourish Trace to be excellent products but more about that later.

Using traditional inch diameter (T8) tubes it's often advised that light be roughly around 1.5 watts/USgallon (between 1 and 2w/g roughly) but be aware that this is a simplistic statement and only part of the overall "lighting skill" that is helpful. A T5 will put out more light for the given wattage, so you have to take that in to account. These comments of course are for liquid carbon (as you are asking about) and not CO2, for low light and not high light and for reduced dosing, not high dosing.

I am using Excel successfully with 1w/g and low-light (for the most part) plants. I had some recommendations from Tom Barr that I try to practice some of what he calls "reduced EI" where you simply use smaller doses of the same sets of things you dose in EI but still perform the large water change on the weekend to reset, if you have time.

I started with simple plain Flourish (in addition to Excel) and then began adding the other products over time. Unfortunately, I did indeed find that for Seachem, my best results came only when I began doing daily dosing (in pretty tiny amounts) of -all- the bottles. So I now dose Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Trace and Iron. That's six large bottles on the shelf, including the Excel. I dose the P slightly less than the N and K and the Trace and Iron in even smaller amounts.

[Note that there are a couple of reasons I use this stuff. One is that I've been too lazy to get busy and order dry ferts and mix my own stuff although I intend to do this some day. The other is that I'm in the US and can't get TPN+ which I fully believe would be just as good as using the 5 Flourish mixes.]

Anyway, those are my comments. Liquid carbon works reasonably well for many plants but not all and of course CO2 is better, but of course you're aware that lot's changes if you cross over to higher light and CO2 and a more high-tech approach.

WD

 

[ian]

I personally like the Seachem stuff, it's very good value for money, if your not going to use dry ferts. As for the wattage on the T5, we would still use the WPG as a ruling unless the T5 in T5HO. The T5 bit is only the measurement of the bulb.

As for the Excel, over the long run in such a large tank, it's not going to be very cost effective. You're still running a low light set-up Simon. It's not going to hurt to dise Excel though. I don't think N and P are really needed in your tank, as the plant mass isn't that high. The algae on the leaves could always be spot dosed to get rid of the algae, all you'll need is a syringe and dose straight onto the leaf. I'm also a great believer in flow around a planted tank as well, so adding a Koralia won't hurt either.

 

[simonas]

cheers for the answers chaps

the koralia suggestion is a good one and will be looked into over xmas, Now I;ve increased the flow I;m looking forward to seeing a slight improvement

Other than the excel and trace should I be adding anything else Ian?

 

[waterdrop]

I have a Koralia that I'm really happy with except that eventually as it loosened up I was able to detect some subtle hum, so now I run it on a timer just like my lights. The fish actually seem to enjoy have active and more still times. WD

 

[Steve H.]

Hi simonas, I'm also a plant newbie (at least, of the past 3 years while I've been trying to lay a groundwork for understanding it) so take my comments with grain of salt and obviously wait for some of the experienced ones here.

I have found Seachem Flourish Excel and Flourish Trace to be excellent products but more about that later.

Using traditional inch diameter (T8) tubes it's often advised that light be roughly around 1.5 watts/USgallon (between 1 and 2w/g roughly) but be aware that this is a simplistic statement and only part of the overall "lighting skill" that is helpful. A T5 will put out more light for the given wattage, so you have to take that in to account. These comments of course are for liquid carbon (as you are asking about) and not CO2, for low light and not high light and for reduced dosing, not high dosing.

I am using Excel successfully with 1w/g and low-light (for the most part) plants. I had some recommendations from Tom Barr that I try to practice some of what he calls "reduced EI" where you simply use smaller doses of the same sets of things you dose in EI but still perform the large water change on the weekend to reset, if you have time.

I started with simple plain Flourish (in addition to Excel) and then began adding the other products over time. Unfortunately, I did indeed find that for Seachem, my best results came only when I began doing daily dosing (in pretty tiny amounts) of -all- the bottles. So I now dose Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Trace and Iron. That's six large bottles on the shelf, including the Excel. I dose the P slightly less than the N and K and the Trace and Iron in even smaller amounts.

[Note that there are a couple of reasons I use this stuff. One is that I've been too lazy to get busy and order dry ferts and mix my own stuff although I intend to do this some day. The other is that I'm in the US and can't get TPN+ which I fully believe would be just as good as using the 5 Flourish mixes.]

Anyway, those are my comments. Liquid carbon works reasonably well for many plants but not all and of course CO2 is better, but of course you're aware that lot's changes if you cross over to higher light and CO2 and a more high-tech approach.

WD

This is pretty old, but I have been searching for an answer.

I am on a same path as you were at this time. I have started dosing with Excel, and I am researching EI dosing to go along with it. Something I said I did not want to do, but now the hobby has brought me here.

Are you still EI dosing with all the Seachem trace?

spelling edit

 

[tomtomtom1230]

+1 for a bit of an update I've recently started a a planted tank and I've started dosing the entire range of Flourish products in small amounts using an EI method.

 

[Steve H.]

+1 for a bit of an update I've recently started a a planted tank and I've started dosing the entire range of Flourish products in small amounts using an EI method.

How's that working out for you?
I have good plant growth without dosing, but I am battling green spot algae and a touch of bba.
So, I'm out of whack somewhere, and think EI will help.