March 10
April 19
In the course of spending four days entertaining Luis Navarro for GSAS, he suggested the "Excel" treatment for the algae cesspool that has become some of my favorite tanks over the past few years. We picked up the largest bottle we could find at A Place For Pets in Burien, which was unfortunately only a pint or so. I would only be experimenting on small tanks this round.
The methodology was to dose 5ml of Flourish Excel per 10 gallons of tank, once a day, for five days, starting on March 10th. Luis suggested using a small irrigation syringe, so as to get it right at the problem algae spots. (I'm not sure how useful that was, as the water disperses quite fast in the tanks.) At the end of the five day period, a 60-75% water change was done.
It is also worth noting that I had also re-attached CO2 and done a large algae removal and water change one week prior to Luis' arrival. The tanks had been languishing prior to this.
I apologize for the non-uniform look to the photos. Some are frame-grabs off my new camcorder.
This tank was not dosed with Excel.
March 10 |
April 19 |
You have to click and enlarge the photos to really see the detail here, but the tank is essentially unchanged! There are little bits of algae hanging off the giant hairgrass in both views. OK, so far so good...
This tank had a mixture of Hygro polysperma, stargrass and Najas being desparately out-competed by green thread algae. Prior to Luis' arrival, the tank was stripped of most of the plants and algae physically removed as much as possible.
 March 10 |
 March 26 |
 April 19 | |
There is currently no trace of algae in this tank now! Note also the two kleiner bar swordplants (picked up at club meeting -- 'they stay small!').
This tank is a some Cryptocoryne wendtii that has been growing into a nice patch over the years, save for the tufts of green algae and Utricularia that hitchhiked in a few years back.
 March 10 |
 March 26 |
 April 19 | |
This really illustrates how an algacide is a temporary solution, not a cure! In the March 26th shot, one week after treatment completion, the stringy algae had been reduced, but not eliminated on the Bolbitis on the right side. One month later, the algae has regrown. I need to retreat this tank, or perhaps remove the Bolbitus to an emerse tank for a bit.
The biggest problem with this tank is that there are no fast-growing plants to suck up all the excess nutrients. Perhaps I will replace the ousted Bolbitis with some nice stem plants...
This is another Crypt tank, that was fairly stable until I uprooted an enormous Anubias (along with several Crypt rhizomes) for the plant auction in February.
 March 10 |
 March 20 |
March 26 |
 April 19 |
Again, you can clearly see that not ALL the algae was removed from the driftwood and heater. You can't see it in the April 19 shot, but the stringy green algae is coming back on the driftwood near the top. The existence of the Hygro in the tank is probably keeping the growth down.
Well, as soon as this flu/fever thing I've got lets up, I'm going downstairs to pull out that algae-encrusted Bolbitus in tank C, and the driftwood in tank D. I put in an order for a gallon of Excel at one of the mail-order places, so I can try this on my larger tank (which is in really sad shape).
-- 19 April 2008