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After a few plants posts and showing some photos a number of people recommended that I use Flourish Excel in my tanks. They are all basically low to low-medium lighting, no co2. I've had the worst algae problems in my 20l, one of my 10gs, and my 5g.

Last week I did my big water changes, so I also added the initial dose of 5 mL per 10g.

Now the directions say to dose 5 mL/50g daily or every other day. Should I start with every other day?

Thanks

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Theresa,

Mattyboombatty responded to a [link=similar question]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Planted%20Aquaria/60747.html?200506211055" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link] I raised a while ago:

[font color="#C00000"]Some plants like echinodorus species do better if you put in a plant spike anyways, while fast growing stem plants take a lot of nutrients from the water column and liquid ferts are appreciated. Just don't add too many ferts because an algae outbreak could occur. It's best to dose too little and work your way up to a full dose IMO, over a period of weeks to view the plants' response to the ferts.[/font]

Although I used only one dosage of Flourish Excel since then (it was only last week) I have to say that his approach makes the most sense to me now.

Hope this helps,

Ingo (and Mattyboombatty without knowing it)

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Matty's advice was regarding micro nutrient ferts.

Excel is an organic carbon source so should be treated differently.

I would follow the instructions. If they say daily or every second day follow that guide. Suppose it depends how many plants you have in the tank.

You could start at 2 days , if no improvement bump up to a daily routime.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Since I've been quoted I thought I should drop in and say .

Excel is a different type of product than normal liquid ferts, like bensaf said(IMO care should still be taken when starting the use of new products). Excel supplies carbon to the plants in a form that is easily taken up by the plants. It's like adding CO2, but without the errr...well without the co2. Dosing a liquid is obviously easier than getting DIY CO2 to work properly, but in defense of CO2, I think it's easier for the plants to take carbon from CO2 than from the organic molecule that excel uses.

I used this stuff shortly a while back and noticed a bit of difference, but my tank is a decent size and I thought it would be too expensive to use Excel permanently. Falstaf started this thread about the wonders of Excel, so you might want to check that out.

good luck to ya

Edit: To Ingo - sorry about the confusion, I should have specified that I was speaking about micro nutrients, and not the entire range of liquid ferts, which includes excel. Although I always find it good to start slow and work your way up to full dosing, this way you can find what your plants do best with. It's also easier to catch a problem before it becomes a large issue(like algae with micro ferts, or possibly side effects to your fish in the worst case scenario).

Last edited by mattyboombatty at 26-Jun-2005 11:17

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

bensaf and mattyboombatty,

Thanks for clearing up this confusion :%) :%)

I hope I still have some creditability left

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Here is the Flourish Excel Chart.

Keith

keithgh attached this image:


Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

If I dosed that many ferts that often I'd have a green stew! I dose once a week what they say to dose once a day. Does anybody here use that many ferts, or a schedule similar to that?

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Yes.I do.

A very strong word of caution -

A schedule like above applies to a heavily planted high light co2 supplemented tank. Such a dosing regime is not for everyone.

You've seen my tank, you seen the amount of plants, with that many plants I need to dose all nutrients because the plants consume it faster then my fish poo can produce it.I can overdose quite a bit and not have problems. That many plants growing well knocks algae out no matter how much nutrients in the water. In such a set up excess nutrients DON'T cause algae - shortages of one nutrient will. The shortage of one will stunt plant growth leaving the algae room to eat. This can mistakenly look like high nitrates or phosphate cause algae, they don't. High levels when the plants can't consume it, because of the shortage of another nutrient (include light and Co2 in this) do. Tom Barr (plantbrain) has proven all this, he has recently pushed Nitrates up to 100ppm in tests without a lick of algae !

But as I said it's not for everyone Good light 2-3 watts, Co2 of 20-30ppm, LOTS of plants and you can throw in pretty well as much ferts as you like without issues.

Last edited by bensaf at 27-Jun-2005 09:37

Last edited by bensaf at 27-Jun-2005 09:40

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Seachem like to confuse us sometimes by giving contradictory information, and excel is no exception.

Seachem's general recommendation is to use it daily (in the recommended dosage) as the organic carbon is available for 24 hours. Then there's the every-second-day dosing which they recommend in case you have plants which are sensitive to excel -- the only plants they mention that is sensitive to it is anachris.

Then they also recommend overdosing it if you have lots of algae. In that case they recommend increasing the dosage slowly rather than overdose at once. They also, at the same time, warn against overdosing on the bottle and elsewhere, as there has been some cases where overdosing killed fish, but it seems this was only the case where hobbyists got a bit carried away with the stuff...

My advice, from my experience and common sense, is to start with the normal dose on a daily basis. This, from my experience, already boosts plant growth and might help with the algae. If you then feel you want to push things a little further then do it slowly and know where to stop. According to information Seachem post around, mainly on forums, a double dose is still in the safe zone, so I personally wouldn't go any further than that.

Hope this helps.