# Liquid CO2, Moss, Crypts and Shrimp



## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

There's no such thing as liquid CO2, for your purposes, at least. If you mean something like Seachem Excel, then yes, it is shrimp safe, but I dose under recommended dosages to be safe.


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## Complexity (Jan 30, 2008)

I have overdosed Excel in my red cherry shrimp tank (to kill BBA) with no problems. Ditto with overdosing Excel in tanks with amano shrimp. So I can at least say that Excel should not harm shrimp when used as directed.

Excel, like CO2, is a carbon source. It's the building blocks plants need to make the physical structure of plant material as they grow. So, yes, it will help the plants. Imagine if you wanted to build a house, but didn't have any building materials. Same thing. Plants need carbon to build with.

However, in a low light situation, it's possible that the light or lack of ferts will limit the plants to the point that they cannot utilize the extra carbon you're putting in the tank. If that happens, you're not doing any harm by adding it, but it's not doing any good either. The only way to know is to try it and see if your plants respond by growing better/faster.

For my low light tanks, I have found crypt wendtii 'bronze' to be a great plant. Crypt parva works well for a smaller plant. Hygrophila corymbosa 'compacta' makes a great large stem plant in low light (forget the name "compact" because it grows much larger in low light). These plants have done very well for me in what I would call _extreme_ low light, even when java fern and moss couldn't grow (although they also grow very nicely in high light tanks, too).


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