Alternatives to Flourish Excel

[gheitman]

Has anyone used and can recommend any alternatives to Seachem's Flourish Excel? It is a great product, and I use it in almost every tank, but it is known to have a bad effect on vals and anacharis which I have in one tank.

One product I am considering is Marc Weiss' Natural Aquarium Vital. I would like anyone's feedback on this product. Does it work? How does it compare to Flourish Excel?

 

[rkilling1]

you are using excel on top of injecting CO2?

 

[fish_4_all]

Had never heard of it but sounds like it could work. I don't know enough about chemistry to say it would help like Excel does with CO2 shortages but who knows.

Product Information

 

[gheitman]

I'm not injecting CO2 in this tank. It has less than 2wpg of lighting and I am using a sponge filter which diminishes the effect of any CO2 injection because of the high amount of surface movement.

Here is complete information on the tank in question:

20g planted #2 - Apistogramma baenschi, Otocinclus affinis - planted with Alternanthera reineckii, Echinodorus barthii, Egeria densa, Ludwigia glandulosa, Vallisneria spiralis - equipped with Oxygen Plus Bio-Filter 2 sponge filter, 100W Tronic heater, 18W ColorMax and 18W 6,700K fluorescent lamps, Rena Air 300 air pump (shared with another 20g).

 

[Purrbox]

I would avoid that product. If your read carefully, it sounds like it is providing CO2 by breaking down the KH. This means that it would be useless in tanks with little to no KH and dangerous in others as it can cause a pH crash.

If you don't want to use Flourish Excel, your only good alternative is CO2 injection (DIY or Pressurized).

 

[gheitman]

I had read very little which was positive about Natural Aquarium Vital so I decided to stay away from that for now. After some further thinking, I decided to set up and use a Hagen CO2 canister I had which wasn't being used. Since this particular tank is being filtered with a sponge filter, there is a lot of water movement to diminish the effectiveness of gaseous CO2 injection. That is why I wanted a liquid source of carbon.

 

[flip_lx]

So what excactly does Excel do to Anacharis? I dose daily 2 capfuls of excel in my 29 and my anacharis is jumbo(top to bottom in height and stretchs to half the tank length)

 

[rkilling1]

Anacharis is one of the plants that can take carbon from KH and it is believed that Excel inhibits that from happening.

 

[Purrbox]

Plants that are sensitive to Flourish Excel will melt if they react to it. Basically the leaves just turn transparent and disintegrate. Anacharis and Vals are the two main types of plants commonly affected, but they don't always react to it. This is why it is often recommended that you start with a half dose and then slowly increase the dosage, that way the plant has a chance of getting used to it without being harmed. Unfortunately this doesn't always work.

 

[flip_lx]

hrm guess i got lucky added mine into the tank after it was being dosed already no issues other than it being freakishly huge

 

[An t-iasg]

gheitman - I use a sponge filter in my 5 gallon tanks, and also use the Hagen system for CO2. I use a gang valve on the airline to turn the flow down. Could you do this with your fish? The tanks are for bettas so they don't mind the reduced flow. My plants were still pearling very nicely.

 

[gheitman]

I may turn down the airflow to that tank to reduce surface agitation. The tank is lightly occupied with only four fish at the moment so the bioload is very low. My goal is to breed Apistogramma baenschi in this tank.

 

[Plantbrain]

The Marc Weiss stuff is snake oil.
Total waste of $$

Been saying this to folks since 1995.
If you makes claims, they need to be supported.
This product has never done this.
It is in no way like Excel from Seachem.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[gheitman]

Are there any viable alternatives to Flourish Excel as a liquid source of carbon? I haven't seen any.

 

[hashbaz]

Are there any viable alternatives to Flourish Excel as a liquid source of carbon? I haven't seen any.

There is glutaraldehyde but you need to be daring to try this stuff.

The details are a little sketchy, but glutaraldehyde is the main ingredient (or similar to the main ingredient) in excel.

Excel only costs $40/yr on a 75gal (using recommended dose, and not including shipping) - so I plan to stick with excel. Its a lot easier.