twig said:
those plants wil be fine without co2 injection, if you really got time to waste feel free to add some diy, but i would NOT use excel, ever.
No need for CO2? They claim it.
- Thread starter lozgod
- Start date
those plants wil be fine without co2 injection, if you really got time to waste feel free to add some diy, but i would NOT use excel, ever.
Yes, why no excell ever? It seems to work quite well in my 29 gallon setup, with low to medium light plants.
Most enriched substrates do not leach nutrients into the water column, and will not cause you any trouble. Your light levels, and nitrate levels will be the two key factors really. light dictates growth rate, and too much light is IMO the leading cause of Algae outbreaks in low tech tanks. ?Nitrate can be controlled via water changes so will just require some attention until you get things figured out. also pay attention to what else comes in through your water source. some sources are devoid of Potassium, and many trace lements, so you may need to add these anyhow.
TKOS said:
excel is known to melt certain type of plants such as anacharis and also small shrimps are sensitive to them. It uses chemicals to generate co2 unlike pressurized or diy which injects "normal" co2 into the tank. You can search google for how excel works. Also some of the instruction labels on the old bottles are wrong, if you follow them will overdose the tank to dangerous level.
i would never use excel to me they belong in the same category as ph balancing chemicals, but to be fair it works in very controlled tanks for example tanks with only certain type of plants that are known to benefit from excel. If it's been working for you then great keep at it, but the bottomline is why add extra risk to a new tank when you have alternatives.
Personaly after it melted half my tank, i will touch it.
I've never had any negative issues with my cherry shrimp or ghost shrimp, and the only plant that I have ever seen it melt was anachris. There was a rumor going around about vals at one time, but honestly that proved out to be something other than the excel. I know far too many people who use it successfully in val tanks. I overdose a couple of my tanks to about 5 times the reccomended dosage and while I don't profess that this is a good practice in most cases, I have seen no problems with overdosing either.
Excel does not use chemicals to generate co2, excel is an alternate form of bio-available carbon that plants can and will utilize in place of Co2. Almost any well known plant Guru in the world who has tried excel will reccomend excel after extensive testing, the only caution you ever see is don't use it with anachris specifically.
In addition to the other merits of excel it is extremely useful for algae control. So even in tanks with High co2 injection, I often use it as added carbon and algae controller. The stuff does what it claims to do, and works wonders on planted tanks. it is hardly in the same category as pH controlling chemicals or any other snake oil product out there.
Excel does not use chemicals to generate co2, excel is an alternate form of bio-available carbon that plants can and will utilize in place of Co2. Almost any well known plant Guru in the world who has tried excel will reccomend excel after extensive testing, the only caution you ever see is don't use it with anachris specifically.
In addition to the other merits of excel it is extremely useful for algae control. So even in tanks with High co2 injection, I often use it as added carbon and algae controller. The stuff does what it claims to do, and works wonders on planted tanks. it is hardly in the same category as pH controlling chemicals or any other snake oil product out there.
bigscout said:
Excel is organic carbon, i guess you can call it natural but it's not the same co2 you get from diy or pressurized. And it is also a reducing agent(like dechlorinator but stronger) that binds oxygen, so if used in excessive amounts it will be dangerous to livestock.
As to whether it melts certain type of plants like vals, it's a dice roll. Many used it fine with vals, and many had theirs completely dieoff. There are also reports of val dieing then adjusting to excel and eventually come back. Even seachem the maker of excel admitted there is a possibility of causing detrimental effects on vals. I think the most common pattern all of them share is you need to start dosing VERY conservatively then gradually increase the dosing amount to let plants and livestock (especially shrimps) to adjust and adapt.
While i agree excel helps a good deal with algae, it's the same as use chemicals to control algae. In a well balanced tank you should not need excel for algae control.
My main point is yes it may work or it may kill your tank if done incorrectly, WHY take the risk? there are enough variables in a planted tank to worry about without adding additional risks. It's not like you cant get co2 from any other sources.
But we need to remember that hte plants odn't need Co2, only C so which source will really make no difference to them as long as it is a source they can metabolize.
I'll not argue on how to dose, I started out heavy dosing and stayed that way.
Algae is not always fully controllable, and we all make mistakes. without excell, irradicating things like BBA would require scrapping plants and starting over in many cases. with excell life is pretty easy. I don't chronically use it in the tanks that have co2, but when there is an issue, I use it as needed. in the high light tanks without co2 I dose it very heavy. oxygen simply is not an issue when the plants are healthy, and plants stay healthy when excel is used.
I have not studied the product fully to know every aspect, but can assure you it's nothing akin to the herbicides generally sold to kill algae. Just like it's nothing akin to your earlier comments about pH altering chemicals.
Why exactly it kills algae so well is a secret that The manufacturers are keeping to themselves, but it does in fact kill algae, and more importantly kills algae that conventional methods don't kill easily if at all.
Algaecides kill plants also. this is certainly not the case with excel. Furthermore algaecides kill algae very rapidly which leads to other issues from decayong matter. excell will stall growth and kill algae slowly which leads to your tank and maintenance handling the dead algae pretty well, not to mentin the enhanced plant growth which further protects the system form any ammonia produced via dead algae.
The form of carbon in Excel is an organic intermediate. This means it is not as readily uptaken by plants because they need to perform chemical conversions on it in order to make it usable. CO2 is the most preferred form for uptake, because it is already in the state that they need, thus saves them energy needed to break the organic carbon molecular bonds. Excel is a great product and I use it myself. I just wanted to point out that it is not exactly the same as CO2.bigscout said:
The supposed algecidal effect of Excel is an added bonus. Many people are still not convinced how this works, whether it's directly killing algae or simply allowing plants to outcompete them. You see the same effect with CO2 injection, in that algae will die because your plants are able to uptake all the nutrients that would otherwise be absorbed by algae.
Last edited:
