Flourish Excel and Aeration

ChiaJesus

ChiaJesus

Aquatic Metalhead
May 20, 2008
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Regina, Canada
www.riderfans.com
I'm really new at keeping a planted aquarium and have a silly question. I understand that if you run CO2 you have to be careful with aeration so that you don't lose your CO2. But what if you use Flourish Excel?

I have a few different varieties of Anubias in my 125 with my festaes. Usually they're extremely active and trying to kill each other. I had redirected the outputs of the filters so that they didn't break the water surface and now some of them are hanging out near the top of the aquarium, kinda looking like they're trying to breath the air and very "docile". This is very unusual as they tend to like the middle-bottom of the tank and are extremely aggressive towards each other.

I have since redirected the outputs so that there is aeration just to be safe. But I'm curious to know if this means I'll lose some of the goodness that Excel provides. Thanks!
 
Aeration will not effect excel levels. As a matter of fact aeration will keep CO2 levels at ambient levels when you have no CO2 injection. I would worry if you ever lose power your tank will need a back air pump if your fish came to the top for O2 that quickly.
 
Surafce agitation with excel is not really an issue. The issue is with injected gas. Surface agitation releases the gas from the H2O, eliminating it before it can be used. You should be cool with surface agitation. I keep my warm discus tanks injected at a rate of 40 ppm CO2 with great results! Keep in mind I have about 500 + plants in these tanks.
 
Good to know. Thanks for the replies. It's only been about half an hour since redirecting the output and already it seems that everyone has come back to life. I'm definitely going to get a battery powered air stone as well for power outages.

One more question. Can Excel have some kind of impact on the nitrogen cycle as well? I tested my parameters today and I'm showing 0.1 nitrite which is quite unusual. It could be because of the lack of aeration but just curious...
 
jpappy789 said:
Never noticed anything like that. Although you are adding nitrogen to the tank through the excel it shouldn't be readings as nitrites.
Click to expand...

Interesting. That I didn't know. Perhaps that explains why my nitrate levels seem unusually high as well - in the 20-40 ppm range (can't really tell the difference) and I just did a water change a couple of days ago.

Maybe I should stop adding the Excel for a day or two and see what happens...
 
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