Re: [APD] Excel and Green Water

[Vaughn Hopkins <hoppycalif at yahoo_com>]

I don't use Excel, so my information on it comes from reading here and 
in other aquatic plant forums.  Excel is a Seachem product that 
provides usable carbon for aquatic plants.  It doesn't provide CO2, but 
a different compound of carbon.  If you have a high level of lighting 
the plants will be driven to grow faster than with a lower level, and 
will need fertilizers to do that growing.  Carbon is one of the needed 
fertilizers.  So, with high lighting we need to add all of the 
fertilizers the plants want and enough of each so their growth isn't 
limited by one of the fertilizers, but by the light available to them.  
Excel will provide the carbon, not as well as CO2 does, but a lot 
better than nothing.

If we provide these fertilizers erratically, especially the CO2, so the 
levels are high for awhile, then inadequate for awhile, algae spores 
tend to start growing.  So, using DIY CO2, and allowing the bottles to 
exhaust their CO2 generating before replenishing them can cause algae 
to start up.

Excel also acts as an algaecide, killing some forms of algae if enough 
is used.

Some people use Excel along with DIY CO2 and say they get good results 
that way.

That is about all I know, and what I know is never, ever guaranteed to 
be the truth, the whole truth, or, many times not even a partial truth, 
but only the truth as I perceive it at this particular point in time.  
(Be prepared for an essay question test tomorrow morning!)

Vaughn H.

On Monday, March 20, 2006, at 09:56 PM, John Seymour wrote:

> Vaughn, in a past discussion on green water I chanced to see where you 
> said:
>
> "Even a 29 gallon aquarium with CO2, but an inadequate or
> fluctuating amount of CO2, will also soon become an algae garden. The
> only exception to this seems to be if you use Excel as a replacement
> for the missing CO2." Ah, ha! That's something I need to know about.
>
> What is it about Excel that would make it a replacement for the CO2 as
> mentioned? In what quantities might it be used without CO2 present? 
> Would
> it be beneficial to me with my DIY CO2 system? If so, in what amounts? 
> I
> use only Flourish in both of my tanks, only one of which has the CO2. 
> The
> other has the pea soup.
>
> Vaughn, others, please educate this lowly one.
>
>
> JohnT
>
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