Aquarium Products: Flourish Excel by Seachem

At the beginning of this month I noticed a sudden explosion in the amount of hair algae in my tank and decided to do a little search on the plantedtank forums to see how people were getting rid of their hair algae issues. Many people were doing peroxide dips which requires you to mix a small amount of peroxide and water and dipping the affected plants. This seemed dangerous to the plant and it also would be inconvenient because my plants are placed strategically on the manzanita wood.

The other solutions to the problem was to: 

1) increase the amount of carbon in the tank 

2) do more frequent minor water changes

3) raise your lighting 

At first I started with increasing the carbon amount by using Flourish Excel by Seachem ($9 on amazon.com). I've been using this product for about a week now and noticed the first signs of it working within the first day. The hair algae began to change to a bright orange color and did not spread as quickly as it had before. Much of the algae began to shrink back and become lighter and weaker. 

The extra liquid carbon did not do any harm to my plants at all! Infact it has improved the growth in my plants. I was afraid that the moss would not do well with the added carbon, but there is an obvious difference between the dying hair algae and the growing moss. 

I started the use of the liquid carbon, by doing a major water change, then shocking the tank with a 2x higher concentration of the flourish excel carbon than recommended, then for every day after I added the recommended dose. 

I also started to do the minor water changes more often, and raised my lights from the tank as seen in my previous post. :) Really love the addition of flourish excel in my tank. I highly recommend it! 

P.S. In case you are wondering, the shrimp don't seem to have any negative effects from it either.