overdosing flourish excel....

[Andrewz00]

so ive read and been told by several reliable sources that "overdosing" on flourish excel will actually kill off alge...... im skeptical!

and nervous to overdose anything!!

the bottle says that 1 cap is for 50 US Gal.... i have a 90 gal.... ive been using 2 caps.... how much would "overdosing" consist of? 5 caps? 8 caps?

is it really harmless to my fish?

 

[Lowryder]

Keep in mind, Excel contains minute amounts of copper so if you have any inverts in your tank I would recommend against it. Algae is usually caused by an imbalance of nutrients, CO2, and light in the tank. I suggest taking a look at your plants and doing some research on effects of various nutrient deficiencies, that's the easiest way to see if you're missing something in great quantities.

 

[cabezon]

really? I used to have ghost shrimp when I dosed. now I have big severums and the shrimp are food. But they didnt seem to mind the excel

 

[timwag2001]

i've never heard of excel having copper in it. flourish does. csm+b does. copper is toxic to shrimp, true. however, they actually need a little tiny bit.

now as far as overdosing is concerned. yes it can be be harmfull if overdosed and yes it can kill your fauna. i overdose it all of the time though. i have a 55 gallon tank. what i do is when i do my weekly 50%water change, while the tank is half empty, i dose 1ml per gallon (i dont just dump it in the water, i use a syringe and try to point it at the algae). at that rate, while the tank is half empty, you are treating the water thats in the tank at about 4x the recommended amount. i wait about 10 minutes. then refill my tank, at that point the excel is at about double the recommended dose. i've never killed anything like this other than algae and it does a very good job doing that

 

[mgamer20o0]

you can double the amount. much more after that is risky since it can lower the o2 levels in the tank. excel is a well known algaecide for bba. you can also use H2o2.

what kind of algae do you have?

 

[Andrewz00]

yeah so im pretty sure i went a lil overboard.... LOL oops.... i added about 7 cap fulls (90 Gal tank)..... i was wondering why my fish were sitting on the gravel gasping for air... well not all of them but some....

did a 60% water change... they all sprung back to life.... but the **** alge is still there....

what kind of algae do you have?

Not sure... the green/brown kind... its all over the back glass and some plants...

 

[Lowryder]

i've never heard of excel having copper in it. flourish does. csm+b does. copper is toxic to shrimp, true. however, they actually need a little tiny bit.

Flourish contains:
Guaranteed Analysis
Total Nitrogen 0.07%
Available Phosphate ( P2O5) 0.01%
Soluble Potash 0.37%
Calcium (Ca) 0.14%
Magnesium (Mg) 0.11%
Sulfur (S) 0.2773%
Boron (B) 0.009%
Chlorine (Cl) 1.15%
Cobalt (Co) 0.0004%
Copper (Cu) 0.0001%
Iron (Fe) 0.32%
Manganese (Mn) 0.0118%
Molybdenum (Mo) 0.0009%
Sodium (Na) 0.13%
Zinc (Zn) 0.0007%

Flourish Trace contains:
Boron (B) 0.0028%
Cobalt (Co) 0.00003%
Copper Cu) 0.0032%
Water Soluble Copper (Cu) 0.0032%
Manganese (Mn) 0.0085%
Water Soluble Manganese(Mn) 0.0085%
Molybdenum (Mo) 0.0003%
Zinc (Zn) 0.0169%
Water Soluble Zinc (Zn) 0.0169%
Rubidium (Rh) 0.000008%
Nickel (Ni) 0.000003%
Vanadium (V) 0.000002%

 

[mgamer20o0]

thats flourish and flourish trace not excel.

 

[JustOneMore20]

IME Excel doesn't kill all types of algae. I haven't overdosed it consistently, though I do use it directly on cladophora algae and have used it with hair algae with good results.

How much light do you have over the tank and how planted is the tank? Also do you dose ferts...if so, which ones and how often? And any co2 injection?

It's usually better to figure out the cause of your algae and fix that versus trying to use something to get rid of it because most likely if it went away and you stopped dosing the excel, it would come back.

 

[krap101]

I believe it works with staghorn algae too, for that matter

 

[Petty Officer Salamander]

I agree with Lowryder on this one.. take a close look at your tank's condition and parameters, and fix the origin of the problem, instead of overdosing a single chemical and hoping it works.