# Cladophora + Excel Dilemma



## holocron (May 29, 2005)

Hi there,

I have read numerous forum posts about curing cladophora algae by overdosing flourish excel. I am currently dealing with a small scale cladophora issue and have some excel here but I am a little nervous about dosing due to my fish. 

I have a 50g tank with 192watts of PC light. It has DIY CO2 and runs about 20ppm CO2. I also have discus fish in this tank, so the temp. is rather high (28C/80F). I am wondering if anyone could direct me on dosing the excel so the algae dies and the fish don't  

also, should i dose excel on a regular basis if i have diy co2?

thanks in advance.


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## Jason Baliban (Feb 21, 2005)

If you problem is small, do a spot treatment. Turn off your filters and circulation. Use a syringe to attack specific spots. Let that sit for 15 and turn your hardware back on. Within the next two days, the stuff will be white.

Even though you are spot treating, be sure to not use more then 3x the normal dosing for you tank size at one shot.

jB


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## holocron (May 29, 2005)

thanks! I will give that a try.


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## user367 (Dec 15, 2004)

to holocron
Please
describe what you have now
Had you used exсel?
I have this problem with cladophora too(((
I am interesting any results


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## fisherelli (Oct 22, 2005)

Just for information :-

I have what I believe is this algae. I double dosed excel (in the whole tank - not spot treated) for 2 weeks and it did not kill it. It may have slowed it down (not sure) a bit but I saw no whiteness or any other signs it was dying.

It did however kill staghorn after about 8-10 days and some other misc brown fluffy algae I had. It also killed 5 amano shrimp (leaving me with none) at about day 6 or 7.

I may try spot treatment,.. when my green water has been dealt with  

Good luck!


forgot to mention : fish were fine at this dosage (neons, pearl gouramis, ottos, SAEs, frogs)


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## stcyrwm (Apr 20, 2005)

I have been using it to spot treat for clado in one of my tanks. I have a 55 and don't dose more than 10 ml a day which is 2x recommended dose. All my shrimp have been fine. I have lost about 25% of my HC though along with 95% of the clado that was mixed in with the HC. I think the places I lost the HC were places I dosed too much in one spot. Try experimenting around with it and see how it does.

Bill


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## Pat Bowerman (Mar 18, 2004)

*Try the spot approach......*

.....if you're worried about your fish. Just turn off all the filters, wait for the circulation to die down, then shoot the Excel directly on the algae. After 30 minutes or so, restart your filters. Try using about 10 ml in your 50 gallon and you should be able to do this everyday, for as long as it takes.

IME, it's pretty easy to tell when you've dangerously overdosed the Excel, the fish look distressed and head for the surface. If this happens, a 50% water change should remedy the situation. I believe the Excel reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen and that might be a touchier issue at the temps that discus need to be kept, but I think if you observe your tank, you won't have any issues.

I've been dosing Excel on a regular basis (recommended amount) while using pressurized CO2, and both my plants and my cherry shrimp look great.

http://www.patbowerman.com/aquarium/20lweb.jpg


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## don64 (Sep 27, 2005)

*algae*

hi my first time 
i tried bleach on anubias plant that was covered with algae when it turned white i just run the plant under water put it back in the tank and it is doing will


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## holocron (May 29, 2005)

Hey,

I started double dosing excel with fairly unsuccessful results. The algae seemed to fade, but the fish and shrimp were in obvious distress. I definitely have a low oxygen problem in my tank.

today I totally cleaned the tubbing in my eheim and a lot of crude came out, and when I rehooked everything back up the flow rate had increased at least 3-4 fold. Poor circulation was also a contributing factor to the stress. I am going to wait it out and see if my tank can get back to normal before double doseing again.


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