Email from Seachem Laboratories Reguarding the effects of Flourish Excel

Jag1980

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Aug 18, 2008
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Email response from Seachem:

" To be completely honest with you, the only plant that we have come across that reacts negatively to Flourish Excel is Anacharis. Anacharis is a particularly sensitive species (known to be sensitive to high temperature, trace copper, formaldehyde etc.). Though there is no copper or formaldehyde in Excel, one person did notice that his Anacharis did not respond well to the product. I'm not sure if you have any of these in your aquarium, but if you do then perhaps try dosing the Excel a little less often. We actually have only received this complaint one time regarding the Excel, as most notice tremendous effects on their plants. Did you notice these negative effects only after beginning to dose the Excel? I ask only because some products that are on the market to re-mineralize RO water are sodium chloride-based and tend to melt the leaves on plants(Equilibrium is not). There are no plans to re-formulate the Excel, as we typically receive positive comments and also experience extreme benefits from Excel in our tanks here in the office. This is a completely unique product, in which the active ingredient mimics photosynthetic intermediates, thus minimizing energy output by the plant to take in a carbon source. If you could possibly provide us with the species that are not responding well to the product, then perhaps this will be useful information that we can pass on in case others have similar experiences. We appreciate your taking the time to provide us with this info, so that we may keep a list of particularly sensitive plants in order to help others. "

I heard of a few types of plants that do not do well with Excel, so I wrote them a email asking about this.
If anyone knows what species of plants do not do well with Excel please post here and give a description on how you know that it is from Excel and not just the plant condition itself.

If no one complains then it will never get changed for the better of "ALL" our plants.

If anything it would be nice to have a small list of plants that do not do well with Excel. Not every product is perfect, but this might help the product get to that point.
 
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Very cool that they responded. I have had corkscrew val totally melt. I quit dosing Excel in that tank and it's coming back. I didn't keep logs or detailed info, but there is zero doubt in my mind as to the cause. All my other plants seem to benefit from it.
 
I have Italian Val that melted down to a couple of inches after adding Excell. It still sent out runners which also grew to a couple of inches.
I have not used Excell for monthes now but the Val is still 2 or 3 inches long. Wierd. Can't swear it was the product but that's my best guess.
My other Val (Contortion I think) melted back just a little but recovered pretty well after I stopped with the Excell.
 
I had like a 4 inch radius of anacharis, (a bit more than half a foot of my tank covered with it), and when I used Excel it all turned light brown;DEAD! In just one dose, in just two days! I was so mad!
 
I've had Excel wipe out a tank with riccia, mini riccia, and mini pellia. The reason I believe it was Excel was because they were growing prior, a very rapid deterioration of the plants, and other plants are healthy.

Tom Barr offered the idea that plants without stomata, like liverworts and elodea, are susceptible to excel poisoning. This doesn't explain the val melting though, since vals do have stomata.
 
Interestingly, the Riccia I have growing in my paludarium(not much at this point, but it is spreading) doesn't seem to be bothered by my daily dosing of excel.
 
DarkDH I believe you would still get benefit with reduced dosing of Excell. In fact I should have pointed out that my Vals stunted on me after I had double dosed the Excell a couple of times in hopes of getting rid of a hair algae outbreak.
 
My Val's where 18" when I first got them and while dosing with Excel they have died like I was trying to grow them in the toilet. I had to cut most leaves so far down they are only 2" to 3" and the others leaves slowly died until I stopped dosing with Excel.
My other Val's I got from a different pet store where not affected as badly but where only 5" in height, they would not grow any taller at all and put out some runners. Runner growth rate about 1" in 48 hours with my CO2.
I notice most of the bad results within 48 hours of the large weekly dose of Excel recommended on the dosing chart.
I have not used Excel for over a week and been using smaller doses of CO2 from my CO2 yeast generated DIY system and see nothing but great results and lots of new runners and my Val's are all growing taller now within a couple days, no more melting of the leaves.

My Hornwort did not do well with the large dose of Excel either, but it did ok with the normal daily dose recommended my Seachem's dosing chart.

I also been having problem with my Brazilian Pennywart, not sure if this was a cause of Excel, but it was slowing dying little more each day until I only had about 5 leaves left out of about 30. I stopped using the excel and the dying stopped but no new growth.. It almost seems that it melted the root system off but I could be wrong.

My Anubis was doing just fine with Excel.
 
Let this thread run for awhile and then email them the link. There seems to be a common theme.
 
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