# Excel Overdose Nightmare - Need Help!



## dudek (Nov 3, 2009)

Hi Everyone,

I'm having problems with my aquarium. I hope someone has some suggestions.

In an attempt to fight hair algae (with a short cut) I decided to try over dosing excel after hearing the great luck some people have had doing that. So for 3 weeks I dosed 2.5 times the recommended dosage in my 30g tank. Only one shrimp fatality. Flora and fauna seemingly fine.

Day two of over dosing I noticed the water go cloudy, this was normal according to a few posts here and on APC. So I stuck with it. But after 3 weeks and no effect on the hair algae I gave up and stopped dosing completely. 

It has been almost 3 weeks since I've stopped dosing and the cloudiness has not subsided. This is with weekly 50% WC. This week I've been doing 1/7 WC daily in an attempt to purge the excel (or what I think is the excel). Allors, no luck. Still cloudy. 

Something I've noticed. When I do a WC I notice the cloudiness subsides but only temporarily. Half way through the photo period it returns to regular cloudiness again. Oh and the water is also a light green color. Algae I guess.

The level of cloudiness is scary really and seemingly getting worse. I'm down to 5 inches of visibility. 

I'm beginning to think it could be a bacterial bloom. Bad blood worms? 

After talking to the girl ant menagerie, I found out she faced an identical problem, but said it cleared up after 3 weeks.

Any thoughts?

Here are my tank specs:

30g (24 g water table)
100 watt MH (6 hour photo period)
CO2 2-3 bubbles per second
Was fertilizing EI method but have stopped that too
6 checkerboard cichlids, 6 mosquito rasboras, 4 tiger shrimp, 2 amano shrimp.
eheim classic, 50% mechanical, 30% EHFI, 1 course pad
HC carpet and a small bush of baby tears.
Some found lava rock, and 2 pounds of drift wood.
feed frozen blood worms every other day


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

The cloudiness you are describing sounds exactly like green water. This is free floating algae, so Excel will have no effect on it.

Your best bet is either a 3 day blackout, or, you could purchase a UV sterilizer...the former being a cheap solution, while the latter is a much more expensive solution. A diatom filter would also be able to mechanically remove the green algae.

As for your lighting, a MH bulb is quite a bit of light; stopping your EI dosing probably just made everything worse...


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## 1dime (Mar 6, 2009)

Too much light..raise it a few inches higher to lower the intensity if possible.

Stopping ferts is another mistake.

With that much light..you need to double your co2.

Follow the steps above after you do a blackout or uv sterilizer method.

Im growing hc...etc "high light plants" (as people say) with 1.2 watts T5ho.
Yes its grows slower but i guarantee you algae will be controlled.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

1dime said:


> Im growing hc...etc "high light plants" (as people say) with 1.2 watts T5ho.
> Yes its grows slower but i guarantee you algae will be controlled.


1.2　WPG of T5HO light is still quite a bit of light


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

I did get a little cloudy water for a few days and it cleared itself. Not sure WTF it was.

I've got a 10gal tank with BBA and staghorn algae. If you've read my thread in here I've had my battle with that but am using EXCEL.

In the 10gal I started my EXCEL dose at 5mL then dropped to 2mL for a week or so bu still not seeing much happening so I went with 3mL for a while and now at 5mL. Took almost a month for really to see any improvement. I had some bushy BBA all over the place but now with some of the plants rebounding and growing it seems the the last of the BBA is starting to go away. I did brush the driftwood and styrafoam cups with a hard nylon bristle nail brush and pulled some staghorn away while still dosing. I think about the 2-3 week was when I started seeing results. 

Before my java moss hardly was wanting to sprout need nodes/branches and now about 50% of the j.moss area is starting to see new bright green node growth coming out. I may have skipped a day or two while dosing but still it's working so far. Then again before I didn't have much plants in htere as I had them in another tub. When I put lal the plants together and the new ramhorn baby snails hatched they went nuts over the algae on the j.moss and I guess in combo with the EXCEL is clearing things up.


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## 1dime (Mar 6, 2009)

Darkblade48 said:


> 1.2　WPG of T5HO light is still quite a bit of light


WPG rule only works for Pc bulbs..cfl. Im saying once you step into T5HOs, MH.. then its a different game.


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

i would start with the blackout period....seems to be the best method (and cheapest) to combat the green water algae. And it doesnt hurt your plants.


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

shrtmann said:


> i would start with the blackout period....seems to be the best method (and cheapest) to combat the green water algae. And it doesnt hurt your plants.


Curious but would a black out with EXCEL dosing also help up a higher recovery or eradication of the algae?


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

that im not sure but i know yor supposed to keep fertilizing. So really i dont see why not altho i dont think there is really a need for it. The blackout period on its own works quite well...and should you i guess decide t dose excel i would just spot treat it, turn off pumps and all water movement for about 5 minutes to allow the excel to sit in the area for a longer period.


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## 1dime (Mar 6, 2009)

This is how i did my blackout

Remove as much algae as i could, then a 50% water change.

Cover the whole tank with black plastic garbage bags.

Co2 OFF..No Ferts..No feeding..No Peeking..only filter/heater

After the 3rd day I peeked in the tank and it was still a bit cloudy so i left it for 2 more days. 

5 days and it was crystal clear, did another 50% water change to remove dead algae. 

Note: note some plants were skinny and pale (light green) but after i went back to normal dosing it recovered.

Clear water will only be temporary until you figure out what caused the bloom.

-direct sunlight
-too much light
-low or fluctuating co2
-imbalance ferts 
etc..........but doing a blackout will definitely hurt the algae

good luck..ooh and don't worry about not feeding your fish, just give them a good feeding before you decide to do a blackout.


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## Hitch (Apr 26, 2009)

and hey....in light of it...save some of the water and you can easily start up some daphnia cultures.


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## dudek (Nov 3, 2009)

Thanks so much for the help everyone. I'm picking up a UV sterilizer tomorrow. 

Is it safe to use a UV sterilizer long term? And where in-line is the best place for it. I have both an inline heater and inline co2 and obviously a canister filter. Best to put in before all that or at the end of the line?

This makes a lot of sense now, there was a period of instability in co2 and my metal halide is a bit close to the water now that i am looking at others setups.

Thanks again everyone, this forum is a priceless resource.


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

dudek said:


> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I'm having problems with my aquarium. I hope someone has some suggestions.
> 
> In an attempt to fight hair algae (with a short cut) ...


Sorry, for interruption your high-tech discussion, but there is a good 100% working solution to remove *hair algae*  It's a Siamese Algae Eater fish.
They will not clean your cloud water (good filter with frequent media rinsing does), but several of them will eat all your hair algae in a week or two. Then they will keep your plants clean enough.

Your can buy them in Menagerie Pet Shop I was them on Wednesday there. And you don't need a lot of them, one or two will be fine.


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## shrtmann (Feb 15, 2009)

SAE's are amazing for algae but always get 2 or 3 of them they seem to keep each other in the algae fighting mood. Ive found with just one he gets distracted and eventually slows down the fight. Oto's work well too for algae combat as do shrimp (altho as recently found out be wary of your other tankmates, i have serpae and black skirt tetras and they thought they were food and within 5 minutes my newly bought shrimp @ 10/$16 became expensive tetra food)....

but back to the green water...your UV sterilizer will clean it up in no time. But you should try to figure out why everything went wonky too..


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