Tom and Friends,

I am starting excel dosing in my low tech non Co2 tank. I know if I dose excel it will no longer be low tech, but I am looking for some more dramatic plant growth. I got the below from your non co2 thread and I just want to clarify. Do you recommend dosing 1.5 to 2 times the dosage excel asks for? I just want to be absolutely sure before I start dumping it in.

Thank you in advance,

"Excel can use EI directly at about 1/4 dosing amounts 2x a week and likely be extended up to 2-4 weeks water changes. But if you have issues or want to keep things looking good and on top of it, do weekly water changes and see how well you can get the tank looking, then try backing off the water changes later if you wish.

So a 20 gal using excel would get:
2 w/gal light
Dose 1/8 teaspoon KNO3 1-2x a week
KH2PO4, 1/16th, 1-2x a week
Traces, 2mls 2x a week
SeaChem EQ 1/8th once a week
50% weekly water change
Dose 1.5-2x the rec dosing for Excel."


Etc

That's about right.
I'd still use a nutrient rich (N and P) substrate(ADA AS etc).

Regards,
Tom Barr

I guess I may be doing this backwards. First let me explain my situation.

I'm sure I messed everything up so bare with me. Its a quite funny story in a sad kinda way.

I was first going to try the non co2 approach you explained in non co2 methods. I was getting good plant growth from everything except my dwarf sag's and my val spiralis. My Vals where putting off shoots like crazy but they would never grow very tall and the tips would rot or melt. The dwarf sags simply don't grow period or send out shoots. I thought they were supposed to be like weeds!?

After about four weeks of dosing every week and seeing some good growth my test kits (cheap test kits) showed that my fert levels were really high and I was having some fish loss so I thought this was the culprit. I now think the fish loss was due either to poor livestock or it was just a result of a poorly cycled tank. I skipped a week to reduce my amount of ferts in the tank. After that week BBA started appearing on my vals. I began dosing again after the week off and I tryed to prune off any BBA. The following week I had BBA on my vals, dwarf sags, and java fern

So I looked up BBA and saw that a common problem is lack of CO2. Since I am in a non co2 tank I thought that lowering my light levels would reduce co2 uptake. I put glass tops on my aquarium in an attempt to slightly reduce the light. I now have brown algae on my rotala indica (I think thats it) which was one of the few plants I had that were growing great. lol! I read brown algae can be caused by too little light.

I wanted more growth from the beginning and I heard Excel helps with algae and can increase growth, also that should make my light a non factor. I know the Excel will kill my vals but I am comfortable with that as they never grew well to begin with.

I should have just asked you to begin with since this is my first tank but I thought I could figure it out. What do you think? What can I do to get my tank back on track and keep it there. Help me please!!

Lastly, my sag's have BBA on each leaf. If I cut the leaves to the roots to get rid of the BBA do you think they will grow back? The roots are still white but they haven't grown as is so I don't know.

Tank= 75 G Standard.
Substrate= Soilmaster select, dusting of peat moss underneath
Ferts= As stated on the non co2 forum
lights= 4, 40 watt t12's, 6700K
Plants= Val Spiralis, 2 Green ozelots, 1 Red Ozelot, Java Fern, Brazilian Pennywort, Rotala Indica, Crypt Wendetti, Crypt Lucens, Crypt Becketti, Dwarf Sag, Ludwigia lucens (I think thats the name.), Wisteria, anubias nana, hornwort, and some long bushy green plant I have yet to Identify but doesn't seem happy in my tank.

Fish= 9 Neon tetras, 5 amano shrimp, 8 ottos, and 1 Bulldog pleco.

I will attach pictures when I get home this morning.

Well I started trying to right my tank. I went in and cut out every trace of BBA that I could see. Hopefully some of the plants survive. Luckily many plants weren't effected by the BBA yet. I then did a 50% water change my second this week. I have got to get a python set up. Buckets are messy and a pain in the rear I then followed that with the dosing for an excel tank listed above. I'll keep you posted with how it goes.