Dwarf Sag is melting

Hi,
With a lighting level of almost 3 wpg T5 and no CO2 it wouldn't surprise me if the sags are responding poorly to Excel only. Dosing Excel per instructions does not automatically give you the equivalent of 30 ppm injected gas so you may wish to consider lowering the light or adding CO2.

Cheers,

 

As suggested, cut the light in half and drop to 8-10 hrs per day.

These are fine

Excel can be dosed up to 1.5x the recommended dosage. Don't think anybody here would tell you to go higher. As stated by Ceg, Excel is not comparable to CO2. EI for Excel starts around 1/3 dosing.

Pack as many plants in the tank as possible. Faster growing stems to start with. Weekly water changes (IME) and a reasonable fish load. Observe the tank for 2-3 weeks before making changes.

Good Luck.

 

Just go to one for a while and see what happens. PC lighting is very intense and can overdrive things. Many here have tanks with much less light and we grow weeds well. If you find the lighting unproductive, you can always add it back. The cool thing is you will gain an understanding at a different light level.

I see no problem with this fish load.

I personally use a bit more than 1/3 EI on my Excel tanks, but I gained this level gradually as I watched the plants and adjusted things. Basically Excel is only going to do so much for a carbon source alone. Then you must work within these parameters.

Maybe leave for now. Try working one problem at a time so you can see what you're doing (ie. cause and effect).

The Excel at 1 ml per 10 gallon = 4.5ml x 1.5 = 6.75ml daily. On WC day 5ml per 10 gallon = 22.5ml. So you are close enough based on the tank volume only.

 

Until recently I didn't had any luck with dwarf sags. Some died and some survived. The ones that make it didn't grew or had runners. They just hang in there.
Now they are really growing at about 2 watts per gallon, EI and most important: CO2. I have some in other tank also with EcoComplete with Excel that are very green but no runners. So Excel with good substrate is good....but CO2 is a most.