FYI - Flourish Excel

**donhitme** · 3rd Feb 2006, 19:05

came across this webpage:
http://www.aquabotanic.com/carbon.html

>. How does Excel add carbon to the water?
As a simple, low molecular weight organic compound.

> Can you please define photosynthetic intermediates and explain the process?
Photosynthetic intermediates includes compounds such as ribulose
1,5-bisphosphate, 3-phosphogylcerate, 2-carboxy-3-keto-D-arabinitol
1,5 bisphosphate. Although the names are complicated, the structures
are quite simple (3, 5, & 6 carbon chains). Flourish Excel does not
contain these specific compounds per se, but one that is quite
similar. It is in its structural similarity that Flourish Excel is
able to be utilized in the carbon chain building process of
photosynthesis. Simple chemical or enzymatic steps can easily convert
it to any one of the above named compounds (or a variety of others).

> Does this affect the pH as CO2 gas does?
No, it does not affect pH.

>Does Excel's added carbon work enough to provide plants what they
need without the need of CO2 injection?
That depends on your definition of need

We have been using the
product here for several years (during the testing phase) and all of
our planted tanks have been doing extraordinarily well. We do not use
any CO2 injection. We usually have to cut and trim every few weeks or
so. However, if your goal is to have the kind of growth where you
would need to cut and trim weekly (because the plants grow out of the
tank every week) then you're not going to see that with Flourish
Excel as the sole carbon source. But using Flourish Excel as the sole
source of carbon is certainly not going to leave the plants lacking
for carbon by any stretch.

> Does Excel offer additional benefits to a planted tank?
It helps to maintain iron in the ferrous (Fe+2) state which is more
easily utilized by the plants.

>. Are there any enviornmental factors in the tank that either
impede or increase Excel's effectivness?
The use of a skimmer will tend to remove it, especially if the tank
is somewhat "dirty" (i.e. hazy looking, lots of detritus floating
around etc).

> Can algae feed on Excel?
No. I'm sure this may raise a few eyebrows

since at face value
this would be a reasonable expectation. But, for reasons Uncle Sam
won't let us discuss, all I can say is that algae can't feed on Excel
and I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to deduce why this
is the case (big picture folks, no chemistry involved

.

Gregory Morin, Ph.D. ~~~~~~~Research Director~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seachem Laboratories, Inc. www.seachem.com 888-SEACHEM

**nostalgia** · 11th Feb 2006, 23:08

Any reviews on this product by local users?

**brad** · 12th Feb 2006, 01:14

A good product. Not quite as good as co2, but defenately visibly improved growth. Great for smaller tanks as it can get rather pricey in large tanks. Some plants and shrimp do poorly with it.

**nostalgia** · 12th Feb 2006, 15:12

Hi Brad! Is there any side effects using it to your fauna?

**brad** · 12th Feb 2006, 22:02

Dosed as it says on the bottle, no. I tried doubling the dose to see what effect it had on algae and ended up losing an angel fish. Shrimp are also rather sensitive to it. I'd suggest using it like any other fertilizer. Start with the reccomended dose, and increase or decrease as you see plant health change.