Flourish Excel

[John G]

The regulator on my CO2 is broken, and while I'm trying to find out if the Milwaukee folks will repair it or if I'm going to have to buy a new one, I've started dousing my 75g with Excel. I've never used this stuff before. If any of you have any experience with it, I'd appreciate any advice/cautions/etc.

[Jeff120]

I have had luck just following the directions on the bottle

[krisw]

I have had luck just following the directions on the bottle

Ditto on Jeff's experience. Of course, just like anything, if you see signs of algae or impaired growth, up your dosing. Some folks use Excel at 3-5X the recommended dose to fight algae infestations, so as long as you don't go way overboard, you won't do any harm in overdosing slightly.

[RTRJR]

The post-water change larger dose did in the water sprite in a shrimp tank for me. Some folks report similar issues with Val, but all I get is a few red lead/dead leaves which is fairly normal attrition.

I would of course love to blame Excel with my inabilty to grow Val nana, but I doubt that it is the issue.

[Telperion]

What if you have shrimp or other crustaceans in the tank? Will upping the Excel affect them negatively?

[Aaron]

How much do you want to up it?

[Telperion]

well someone mentioned adding 3-5x the normal dose to fight algae. I definitely am beginning to have some algae problems but had read somewhere that adding too much Excel (and maybe also Fluorish- not sure) might be bad for my shrimp (only 3 shrimp in a 37 gallon - but i intend to add more).

[SCMurphy]

Crustaceans seem to do better with excell then fish and plants do. Follow the 3X pattern and you should be fine without harming your tank's population. If that doesn't kill off the algae for you then try the 4X, lather, rinse, repeat.