CO2 vs. Flourish Excel

[Holytotemic]

I am currently switching from CO2 to Flourish Excel and I am wondering the pros and cons. I have been using a 2 liter bottle with yeast and sugar (DIY) for CO2 production. I bought a bad plant from petsmart and it infected my entire aquarium with black algae. I heard form a few sources that Flourish Excel is good to use for plants AND removing algae in a heavily planted aquarium. If anyone has experience with this a comment or two would be welcome. I am also attaching a picture of the current issue.


Thanks forum!

 

[Old Scales]

Excel (Glut) is a carbon source for plants at about 60% efficiency of pressurized CO2. Many great tanks are being done with Glut. It does have a mild algaecide effect but is not a cure all. You also could spot treat the BBA with hydrogen peroxide 3% which IMO is a little better than with pure glut. 3ml per 10g of tank per day in a syringe. Turn off all filters and water flow so water is still. Squirt it directly on the BBA then turn lights off and let sit for 20 min. Then you can turn all back on. BBA will turn pink in about 24 hrs then white, then die. The BBA WILL return unless you find the cause, too much light, imbalance of NO3 to PO4 and inconsistent CO2 levels as relates to the light and ferts.
Note that glut needs to be dosed daily and preferably every morning just before the lights come on. Hope this helps. OS.

 

[Holytotemic]

I heard about dipping the plants using close to the same method, but that would be such a pain lol. Currently the black algae only effects the plants I had at introduction of the infected plant. All new plants seem unaffected. Basically it's not spreading, so once I nuke it, it's gone forever...hopefully.

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[Old Scales]

What's painful about keeping a little spray bottle with some H2O2 in it? When you get some new plants, spray them with it until wet, let sit 10 min then rinse and put in tank. Kills snail eggs and algae. Keep spray bottle in a dark place until needed. Should last months that way. There are You Tube videos showing many uses for H2O2 for aquariums. OS.

 

[Holytotemic]

Excellent! Thanks.

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[fish jihad]

I have only used excel for my carbon source. After 7 weeks i can report that stem plants grow at around 1/8th per week. Carpeting plants will not carpet. They will show slight vertical growth but have yet to see runners on hair grass or baby dwarf tears. I use 80 watts of t5HO in a 30 gallon and dry ferts with EI dosing. So i would say excel is good for certain plants, not so much with carpeters

 

[Holytotemic]

Safe to mix both methods?

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[Old Scales]

You're right fish, Excel works for most plants but not as well on some of the advanced, tricky plants. One has to do their homework there. IME really low and carpet plants need really high light >3.0wpg or 80 PAR at substrate. DBT is also a crap shoot without CO2.
OS.

 

[Old Scales]

Yes, I use Glut daily even with pressurized CO2. Also used H2O2 in glut tank with no problems. OS.

 

[Holytotemic]

Excellent, then I will keep running my dyi co2 injection.

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[threnjen]

I have only used excel for my carbon source. After 7 weeks i can report that stem plants grow at around 1/8th per week. Carpeting plants will not carpet. They will show slight vertical growth but have yet to see runners on hair grass or baby dwarf tears. I use 80 watts of t5HO in a 30 gallon and dry ferts with EI dosing. So i would say excel is good for certain plants, not so much with carpeters

But how much are you dosing? You don't say. Without that info I'm not sure a blanket statement can be made.

 

[fish jihad]

But how much dosing are you dosing? You don't say. Without that info I'm not sure a blanket statement can be made.

Im dosing 5ml daily of the excel

The dry ferts are dosed as per a guide on this forum. Dont remember the regime off the top of my head. But i do recall the KNO3 gets 1/4 tsp and the rest a 1/8 tsp or less doesed every other day

 

[threnjen]

Im dosing 5ml daily of the excel

The dry ferts are dosed as per a guide on this forum. Dont remember the regime off the top of my head. But i do recall the KNO3 gets 1/4 tsp and the rest a 1/8 tsp or less doesed every other day

You might get better results dosing more. I'm currently dosing 60mL to my 90g per day, steadily working toward 90mL a day. I only recently found out that many people dose Excel at 1ml:1g. My glosso is definitely sending runners. My hair grass has runners everywhere (although I just pulled a bunch with BBA). Not sure about the Dwarf Baby Tears - I've never done well with it from a mechanical standpoint because I can't get it to stay in my substrate. But the stuff that HAS stayed is growing really well. I've been pretty happy with my growth using just Excel + EI (I realize CO2 would be better). I expected the Glosso to fail but it is thriving. Maybe up your dose straightaway to 10mL and then keep heading up and you might see some improvement.

 

[Brookster123]

Jen left out a key variable in her equation... Bml.. Nuff said

 

[fish jihad]

Threnjen - 60ml is alot of glut. At that ratio i would use up a bottle in 2 weeks. If your dosing that high ( over 10 times the bottle recommended dosage) a CO2 setup would have to be cheaper. Im going to try and transition to DIY co2 in a month or so.


Brookster - what is Bml?

 

[Brookster123]

Build my led, chuck Norris of aquarium lighting..

 

[fish jihad]

Build my led, chuck Norris of aquarium lighting..

Ah yes. Lighting. The holy triangle of lights, ferts and carbon

 

[threnjen]

Threnjen - 60ml is alot of glut. At that ratio i would use up a bottle in 2 weeks. If your dosing that high ( over 10 times the bottle recommended dosage) a CO2 setup would have to be cheaper. Im going to try and transition to DIY co2 in a month or so.


Brookster - what is Bml?

Right I use a different glut, Metricide 14. I hear that Cidex is even cheaper but I haven't looked into it, I will have Met for a while. You don't go through it near as fast. It's like $25 shipped for a gallon and it is almost twice as strong as Excel.
I do really want CO2, definitely not putting it down. It's just not on the table for me money wise (my tank too big for DIY)

Brookster I assumed his light was high-ish since we are talking tough plants!

 

[Holytotemic]

UPDATE! After just a week of dosing with flourish excel, The black algae is receding and new green leaves are sprouting. Thanks for all the information!

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[Holytotemic]

I figure I owe you all an update, it's been a while.

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