which tanks need Excel?

[James_in_MN]

I have three tanks that I had been dosing Excel in, and I'm wondering if I need to continue to in the future.

My 20g high tank will have a CO2 setup shortly, and I'll stop dosing Excel once I have that running.

My 10g tank has easier to maintain plants in it: amazon frogbit, java ferns, and a moss ball. The fish/inverts in it are: a honey gourami, harlequin espeis, amano shrimp, nerite snails, and a blue mystery snail.

My 5g tank has nothing in it but java moss and RCS, and I know that RCS are sensitive to Excel or CO2.

I'd continue to dose with Seachem Flourish Complete, but may limit or eliminate dosing with Excel in the 10g and 5g tanks. Can I get away with it, or am I making a mistake?

 

[Zagz]

Obviously the tank that will have the C02 will not need the excel, and the other two shouldn't need excel IMO. However depending on your lighting, you may still need to dose the smaller tanks. What kind of lighting do you have on the smaller tanks?

 

[fort384]

I agree - you could probably get by without dosing it. You will notice a difference though. Glutaraldehyde has an effect even on lower light plants. I have used it with RCS for a long time, and even sparingly in CRS tanks as spot treatment for algae, and never had an issue...

 

[James_in_MN]

Thank you for the responses.

My 10g tank has two ZooMed CFL bulbs. I'm hoping that with water column nutrients would be enough for frogbit, java ferns, and a moss ball. I do want to avoid killing them off if I stop the Excel though.

My 5g tank has one ZooMed CFL bulb. Since it's only java moss and delicate RCS in it, it's really the tank I want to stop putting any Excel in at all.

 

[James_in_MN]

So I've tried experimenting with no Excel in the 5g tank, but not the 10g yet. I'm still a bit concerned that the moss ball and frog bit might have problems if I cut out the Excel.

However depending on your lighting, you may still need to dose the smaller tanks.

I'm assuming that if I stop using Excel and have decent lighting, I could run into algae problems in my 5g tank, correct? Keeping that in mind, I may have to cut my lighting down even further (I've already had some algae issues). I had to cut it down to 8 hours already (was at 9 hours).

All of my timers for the lighting on my three tanks are cheap digital Wal-Mart timers (cheap but effective). When I bought another one for the up-and-coming fourth tank, the cheap ones were phased out and replaced by a digital timer with 6 possible presets. I'm wondering if I should use that for my 5g RCS tank and split the time my light is on into two 4 hour intervals. I've seen some folks comment that splitting the time the light is on helped a great deal with any algae growth.