# Excel treatment on black spot algae



## CryptKeeper54 (Apr 14, 2012)

I keep reading seachem excel can kill off certain algae with overdosing or spot treatment. Going to document my results here. I think this is black spot algae. If not, someone please correct me. Not the greatest pic but here it is. Links to this tank in my sig.


----------



## rocketdude1234 (Apr 8, 2010)

It looks like it could be low phosphate or potassium. Potassium can cause holes in older leaves. Do you get the same stuff on the glass? Is it difficult to remove?

Excel won't do much if either of the above are the case.


----------



## CryptKeeper54 (Apr 14, 2012)

rocketdude1234 said:


> It looks like it could be low phosphate or potassium. Potassium can cause holes in older leaves. Do you get the same stuff on the glass? Is it difficult to remove?
> 
> Excel won't do much if either of the above are the case.


Orignally this was gonna be my low tech plant but decided to add co2 and EI dosing. Its not on the glass but some on the filter. So hopefully consistent EI dosing will fix some of my probs.


----------



## CryptKeeper54 (Apr 14, 2012)

May have been the excel, but I'm sure there may have been other factors involved as well. In any case, this leaf looks a lot better.


----------



## rocketdude1234 (Apr 8, 2010)

Awesome, that looks much better. Did you do anything besides dose Excel? How did you dose?


----------



## CryptKeeper54 (Apr 14, 2012)

rocketdude1234 said:


> Awesome, that looks much better. Did you do anything besides dose Excel? How did you dose?


Spot dosing with a syringe when 50% of the water is out during water change day. I try not to use more than 5 ml for the entire tank (6 gallons), which I drop over several leaves. I don't think I did anything else different. The tank could just be getting better with age. I continue to do 50% water changes weekly along with EI dosing.


----------



## gordonrichards (Jun 20, 2009)

You can reduce your photo period to 4 hours on, 2 hours off and 4 hours on to reduce and virtually eliminate algae in your tank. Try it and you shouldn't need excel in the future. 

This won't work if your tank gets direct or a bunch of indirect sunlight though.
-G


----------

