Seachem Flourish Excel 500 ml

I purchased this product after some plants I had bought introduced black beard algae to my aquarium. I tried a couple of other products prior to this with no luck. I tried spot treating with Hydrogen Peroxide and while that did seem to work, it was too difficult to use. I had the algae all over the tank to the point that the Hydrogen Peroxide just wasn't a practical solution. I've been using the Flourish Excel for about five weeks now. After maybe ten days to two weeks, it had basically eradicated my algae problem. I still have a couple of spots of green or brown algae here or there - but it's exactly that, just spots. I suspect the Flourish Excel works better or worse on different kinds of algae (as it completely destroyed my problem Black Beard algae) but even on the algae that it doesn't completely take care of, it certainly reduces it and holds it at bay. Additionally, the plants seem to love it. It took a couple of weeks before I noticed substantial enough plant growth that I was sure it was because of the products and not simply regular expected growth from the plants naturally. I have been using this product in conjunction with a shrimp safe liquid fertilizer and my plants have benefitted greatly. My Amazon Swords in particular have tripled in size since starting this product with the liquid fertilizer. Very pleased. Great product, with no side effects to the fish, snails, or shrimp and crawfish in the tank.

Flourish Excel is a liquid source of CO2 for your aquarium plants. Regular addition of Excel will help your plants thrive inside your tank. This is a good option for those who do not wish to add a mechanical CO2 injection system to their tank. An added benefit of using Excel is that it discourages the growth of algae. I have had very good results with my aquatic plants since I started using Excel. Even plants that are hard to grow, like Dwarf Hairgrass, thrive when using a combination of very high light levels and Flourish Excel. I have not noticed any adverse effects on the fish. Will Excel completely prevent the growth of algae? No, it will not. It discourages algae growth, but will not prevent it completely. With a good tank maintenance routine, spare use of fertilizers, ideal light levels, and Seachem Excel, you should be able to manage algae. You will still get algae, but not to the point where it takes over your tank. Seachem Flourish Excel is one of the best products you can get for a planted fish tank. Even if you already have a CO2 injection system, you can still use Excel. You will naturally have to play around with dosing. Having said all of that, regular dosing of Excel can get expensive if you have a very large tank with a lot of fast-growing plants. Then again, an automated CO2 injection system will also set you back a lot of money. You can try and find cheaper sources of liquid CO2, like some aquarists have done and are using surgical instrument sterilizers. However, you need to know what you are doing and will naturally have to play around with dosages and concentration. If you have a small tank, say less than 75 gallon, your best choice would simply be to use Excel. This is an excellent, excellent product. Algae is one of the banes of aquarium keeping. To find a product that not only encourages plant growth, but also discourages algae, is a double blessing. This is one of the most useful advances in aquarium-keeping in recent times. Highly recommended.

--Update-- The algae has begun to disintegrate and fast. It's patchy now and coming off in clumps. The rocks pictured were 90% covered in dark hair. You can see it is no longer a healthy algae color. The green spots I suspect are cyanobacteria but it hasn't spread beyond those rocks in months. If it does I have Blue-Green Stain Remover which works wonders. After one more day I'll do a good 50% water change and my tank will be beautiful again. This stuff is amazing. They should really advertise its algae controlling properties more. I know it's not really this products job to kill algae, but it seems to be a good side effect of it helping plants grow. It really drives a wedge between aquatic plants and algae. Bought this because I got an infestation of black hair/black beard algae. It came in on the back of an assassin snail and began to cover everything. It's friggin everywhere. After research I found there are 3 options: Start over, use hydrogen peroxide , or use this stuff. Since I added the first dose of this 6 days ago 2 things have happened: The algae has stopped spreading and plants that were struggling or just slow to grow have started improving drastically. I even see a 1/4" of new susswassertang popping out of the algae that is covering it. I've never seen it grow that fast. I wish I had started using this stuff sooner. As of now the algae is not dead yet, but I'm sure it will be since it's color has changed from very dark green to a sickly light green with spots that look like rust. I'm thinking that with the ferrous iron going on, I might even see more red coloring in my ludwigia in the future. I've got tetras, assassin snails, amano shrimp and "pest snails" and they all seem unaffected by the product, so 5 stars all the way. A note about the snails: assassin snails are not a good way to control "pest snails" You put those guys in there and they go to work eating as many pond snails as they are able all the while mating and laying eggs every day. My tanks is going to crash hard when they all hatch. Right now I'm just trying to save my beautiful plants in time to migrate them and the fish and shrimps out. I'm going to migrate some pond snails over as well. Turns out they weren't pests. They were policing the algae better than anything in the tank. The assassin snails mucked that up right good.

This product in no way replaces injected co2. It is just a liquid form of carbon, and is a chemical known as gluteraldehyde (spelling is off). The only reason I use this product really is because I run heavily planted, very high light, dirted high tech tanks and inject presurized co2 and liquid fertilizers. This product allows me to run high light and fertilizers and keep algae to a minimum. This product 'excels' (see what I did there?) At letting you bump up light and fertilizers, while keeping algae at bay. Algae hates excel-like products, especially blackbrush algae, and any kind of hair algae. Also keeps any kind of spyro-gyra algae at bay. Must dose regularly and slightly more than recommended to get the algae negating effects. Do not dose more than twice what is recommended, and warm your fish up to it if they have never been exposed to it before. I dove straight into it with one of my tanks before and double dosed (horrible algae growing everywhere)because I was double dosing other tank and thought everything would be okay (both 20 gallons) and ended up killing 90% of my fish, even after doing huge water changes. This was not the products fault, it was my ignorance. You need to gradually work up to that strength or you will shock your fish. I enjoy flourish excel, and have bought it many times. I wouldn't use this product as a plant fertilizer though, only as an algaecide.

Why did you pick this product vs others?: I’ve been using Seachem Excel for a couple months now, and it’s become a staple in my planted tanks. I originally picked it up to help with algae, especially on my slow growers like Anubias and Bucephalandra, and it genuinely made a difference. The stringy stuff on my Monte Carlo started thinning out within a week or so, and spot dosing it on trouble areas gave me visible results without nuking everything else in the tank. What I really appreciate is that it doesn’t melt my more sensitive plants. I’ve heard horror stories about liquid carbon products wiping out Val or messing up crypts, but I haven’t had any of that happen here—as long as you don’t overdose. I’m using it alongside CO₂, too, and it seems to add a little boost rather than interfere. It’s not a silver bullet and won’t stop algae if you’ve got major lighting or nutrient issues, but it’s a great support tool if your balance is already decent. • Pros – Works well as a mild anti-algae treatment – Safe for sensitive plants when dosed properly – Helpful supplement even with CO₂ injection • Cons – Can melt certain species if overdosed – Spot dosing takes a little effort and consistency Thanks for reading, hope this review helped :)

Works well to help control black beard algea from blooming and also keeps my aquatic plants healthy

I’ve been using this product for years in multiple planted aquariums. You can notice healthy plants and rapid growth.

This got rid of green algae.