Effects of overdosing excel?

[Jah410]

Hi, I wanted to know what the effects are on the aquarium when you overdose flourish excel. I know it is common to slightly overdose the aquarium (1.5-2x) but what happens if you overdose like 5x?
I ask because I'm curious if the plants would benefit or be damaged by the concentration as I know excel can be used to spot treat (kill) alage.

 

[fishorama]

Well it's used a medicinal biocide, it kills a lot of stuff, including fish, plants & bacteria (good & bad) at high concentrations. I would not go that high...for any reason & expect "preferred" organisms' survival.

What is it you think you have to contemplate such a drastic treatment?

 

[Jah410]

I've had very slow plant growth and battling with brown algae using a double dosage. Someone mentioned that I may have a carbon deficiency since I am using an all in one fertilizer so no other deficiency should exist. I was considering the idea of upping the dosage of excel but was unsure if it would help, or potentially even hurt my plant growth.

 

[fishorama]

2x excel is as high as I would safely go. I'm a lame fert doser, as many here know. What ferts are you using, how much & how often, for what plants? Root tabs can be better for some plants.

Brown diatoms are usual in the early weeks to 2 months or so. They eventually go away even if you do nothing. I know it's frustrating...but hang tough, it should get better soon.

 

[Jah410]

Yeah unfortunately I fall into one of those odd instances where I've had diatoms for almost a year now... Nothing I do gets rid of them. I have a thread in the alage section of this struggle. I'm currently dialing back my light and ordered a bunch of nerites (just a patch I know) but am hoping that they'll keep it off my SR, which is my main plant cover, long enough so it can really get settled and compete for nutrients.

Anyways, I'm dosing with nilocg thrive for shrimp (at one point I had cherry shrimp). I'll stick to the lower dosage excel in the meantime.

 

[fishorama]

Oh, now I see your other thread & issues. I think you should cut back on ferts & lighting & see if that helps. If you have 2 filters (like I do on all tanks 20g+) you can rinse the heck out of the media in each filter every 2 or 3+ weeks alternating cleaning. I think you may be having fine particulates wash back into your tank from your (slightly clogged) filter. With 2 filters, I rinse media under running tap water. With floss, it gets almost pure white again. If it doesn't, I change it out. It's cheap & effective.

 

[Jah410]

Do I need to be concerned with rinsing out good bacteria? About 2 weeks ago, I added some ceramic beads to the filters to hopefully establish better bacterial colonies if that was the problem. Until that point, I just had a large chunk of filter floss in the filter. I guess as long as the beads are there, the bacteria will stay colonized regardless of my rinsing of the floss?

 

[fishorama]

I would rinse the ceramic bits in tank water but the floss in tap (or toss it). I've kind of lost your plants list beyond staurogyne & your current fish too. All your tank surfaces have beneficial bacteria, not just in your filter, it's everywhere!...except the water column.

Sorry, I'm getting ready for a vacation, so I'm not very focused on your issues. Hopefully someone else will chime in, it may be a few days before I'm back.

You can beat diatoms, good luck!