[SpaceLord]

Does anyone have a list of plants that you can't use liquid C02 with?

I think I remember reading that some plants will melt if liquid C02 was present and I think Vallisneria ( Vals) and Anacharis were some of them.
Do you know if you can't even use a drop or lower dosages or if you have to avoid all together?

Thanks.

 

[jr125]

Both of the plants you list are sensitive to glutaraldehyde. Having said that I have both in my tank and dose with it. People have reported different levels of success with this.

My Vals started to melt and shed leaves when I first started with Excel at normal to lower that normal dosing. I did not use a larger dose initially as directed with Excel. I had to cut back to a very, very small dose(maybe 1/4?) to stop the bad reaction. I held at that dose for a week or two and then gradually increased and am back at very close to the recommended dose. If I exceed this for more that a day or two I start to see the melting again.

The Anacaris I introduced while I was already dosing Excel knowing it might not work out well. Surprisingly almost all of the 8-10 stems have survived and I have a couple of pretty good areas of it now. It does not look full and bushy like some of the pics I've seen of it but is growing and branching out. It is very leggy and the foliage is shorter and more sparse than normal. I run low to medium light and low tech so that might be about all I should expect.

I've switched from Excel to Metricide mixed to Excel concentration and still dose at Excel
recommendations.

 

[AquaAurora]

I've been told subwassertang doesn't tolerate excel. Also marimo is not a good idea as it is an algae and excel is an algaecide.
Some say crypts and java fern don't like it either, but there's conflicting testimonials about them.
As mentioned above vals and anacharis don't like it either.
I've only seen excel used successfully in tanks with these plants if there are a lot of other faster growing plants to absorb it very quickly before it effects vals/marimo/etc.

I tried doing 1 1/12th dose of excel (less than 0.1ml in a 12g long) in a tank full of vals (in the morning) later that day they were all completely melted. Had to cull the mush and siphon, doing several hundred % water changes to clean out the mess.
Incidentally I now do a 3ml dose on that tank with non excel hurting plants (cherry shrimp survive it just fine btw), micro swords love it.

 

[Oso Polar]

I'm dosing daily 2x Excel dose in a tank with subwassertang, vallisneria and different cryptocorynes. Subwassertang and cryptocorynes grow great, vallisneria grows great but it doesn't reproduce at all, I'm not sure if it is related to Excel or to something else. Because of vallisneria I originally started with 1/4 of a normal Excel dose and slowly increased it to 2x (took about a month). Never heard before that subwassertang or cryptocorynes are sensitive to Excel (cryptocorynes are sensitive to any changes but this is another story).

What didn't worked out at all was a plant sold to me as "Ambulia" (Limnophila sessiliflora?) - I put it right away in this 2x Excel tank and it completely disintegrated in a couple of days, nothing was left.

 

[sevendust111]

I have regular java fern, lace, and crypts in a tank that gets 2x dosage with no ill effects. In fact, I think ferns to markedly better with excel vs. without.

 

[SpaceLord]

I'm dosing daily 2x Excel dose in a tank with subwassertang, vallisneria and different cryptocorynes. Subwassertang and cryptocorynes grow great, vallisneria grows great but it doesn't reproduce at all, I'm not sure if it is related to Excel or to something else. Because of vallisneria I originally started with 1/4 of a normal Excel dose and slowly increased it to 2x (took about a month). Never heard before that subwassertang or cryptocorynes are sensitive to Excel (cryptocorynes are sensitive to any changes but this is another story).

What didn't worked out at all was a plant sold to me as "Ambulia" (Limnophila sessiliflora?) - I put it right away in this 2x Excel tank and it completely disintegrated in a couple of days, nothing was left.

Ok, so what if you used like 1/3 the dose amount? Can it tolerate it at any level?

 

[nel]

Subwassertang is growing spectacularly in my tank with 1—1.2 recommended dose of Excel (or more like excel-ish thing I dose). Cryptocoryne had been doing great and... One day all of it melted (my carpet :-(), but it's growing back and I didn't stop dosing either. Vals were doing so-so (I got rid of them, but werent growing fast). Other than vals everything grows nice, but cryptocoryne needs to get used to Excel and then boom, fastest growth ever.

 

[Oso Polar]

Ok, so what if you used like 1/3 the dose amount? Can it tolerate it at any level?

I didn't try.

BTW, does somebody have experience with Blyxa japonica / aubertii and Excel? I just bought Blyxa aubertii last Sunday and it is not looking very good. May be just normal acclimatization of course or it just doesn't like my tank for some other reason.