How much excel to use.

[Fisherjoe]

I was just wondering when and how often I should use excel in my 55 gallon planted tank. It is heavily planted and c02 injected. I have a bit of a bba issue I'm trying to clear up and wanted to know proper amounts of excel I can use. Thanks!

 

[fort384]

It is pretty tough to overdose with it (unless you have plants that are sensitive to it).

I had good luck using it at 3-4X the recommended dosage to spot treat BBA. Put it in a medicine dropper, and "spray" it directly on to the BBA. After about 2 days in row of treatment, the BBA will turn whittish/pink in color and will die back.

What are you keeping your CO2 at? Are you using a pressurized system or a DIY system? I have had tremendous luck keeping BBA at bay simply by keeping up a good level CO2 in the water. I found that unstable CO2 (especially when I was using DIY) was actually worse for BBA than not running any CO2 at all.

 

[Aquachic4545]

Be careful with that stuff! I used it in my tank (following their directions) and lost one of my khuli loaches. For some reason, the scaleless fishies (like khuli loach and black ghost knife fish) don't seem to do well with it. I had to do a big water change and I found numerous references to this problem on the net.

 

[fort384]

There are as many people who report no problems at all with double dosing in tanks with scaleless fish as there are who report issues. I wonder what the determining factor is...

 

[mfdrookie516]

My 40 clouds up when I dose excel.. It's weird

 

[Aquachic4545]

All I know is that I have khuli loaches with the stripes and they freaked out. I suspect the one suffocated. I followed the directions exactly to the tee. Either way, I won't use it now due to my scaleless fish. I also use a yeast based CO2 system (the Hagen one with the ladder) since I'm terrified to having a major issue with CO2 (but that's another story that I'd share on another post).