# excel/fertilizer questions



## ponyo (Aug 9, 2010)

I have a few questions about adding "stuff" to my planted tank. 

The tank is 30ish gallons. Eco-complete substrate. T5NO light. I have Marsilea minuta, Lillaenopsis mauritiana, anubias nana petite, and dwarf sag, and a little bit of Fissidens fontanus moss that isn't looking all that great. I also have 9 glass cats, 1 albino red fin shark (for now), 7 amano shrimp and 3 ottos. 

1) I've begun using excel and I have a few questions about this:

a. I *think* I remember hearing people say they would dose with excel once a week but the instructions say every day or every other day. I'm doing it every other day. But is once a week ok? That doesn't seem right but thought I'd just check.

b. Is it ok to dose with excel until I get my tank filled out nicely and then stop using it? Or once you start it you need to keep using it or switch to DIY CO2 (which I might do actually)? 

2. The LFS guy sold me this water conditioner that deals with chlorine but I'm on well water. He said I should include it anyway so I have been. I'm beginning to run low on it and I'm wondering if I really need to include it considering I'm on well water. And if I can do without it, is it ok to just stop cold turkey?

3. I've been using just a general, liquid fertilizer mostly because it was a lot to process in the beginning and I wanted something easier. But now that I'm more comfortable with my tank and I'm running low on the fertilizer, I'd like to begin dosing the tank myself. I know there have been topics about this in the past so can anyone point me to some good links about learning where to get dry ferts, how to make them, how to dose them etc. etc?


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## ktownhero (Mar 21, 2011)

1a - It's really up to you to experiment and decide how often you like dosing Excel/how your tank responds. Some people dose every day, some every other day, some once per week... It's not an exact science and there's really no right or wrong way. I know that's not an easy answer, but my advice would be don't lose any sleep over it and just figure out what works for you.

1b -- Yes, it's ok to use it and then stop at some point. And you don't have to switch to CO2 if that doesn't interest you. The nice part about excel is that you can sort of use it at-will as your tank doesn't build any sort of dependency on it.

2 -- Have you ever tested your well water to see what's in it? If you know for sure that your well water doesn't contain anything detrimental to the tank, then there's no reason to use one. That said, it certainly can't hurt to use a quality conditioner like Prime that rids the water of chlorine/chloramine and helps detoxify ammonia and nitrites. For a 30g tank, it's a relatively inexpensive investment to keep a bottle around that will help you know that you never end up with a surprise chemical spike in your tank due to ground water changes 

3 -- I can't answer this one. I just have some RootMedic Liquid ferts and when they run out I'll probably never use a fertilizer again. Not a big fan of worrying about these things.


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## Higher Thinking (Mar 16, 2011)

I've heard that dosing excel daily is fast superior them dosing every other day. But like previously mentioned, it will come down to your results. Obviously having more bio available carbon will help silk the more. Getting co2 into your system will certainly be important as well as dosing ferts. Look thru the threads in the fertilizer section about dosing dry ferts. Must chapter and more controlled


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## ponyo (Aug 9, 2010)

Thanks a lot for your guys' help!


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