I recently spoke with Dr. Greg Morin, Research Director of Seachem Labs about their new product Flourish Excel...

>. How does Excel add carbon to the water?
As a simple, low molecular weight organic compound.

> Can you please define photosynthetic intermediates and explain the process?
Photosynthetic intermediates includes compounds such as ribulose 
1,5-bisphosphate, 3-phosphogylcerate, 2-carboxy-3-keto-D-arabinitol 
1,5 bisphosphate. Although the names are complicated, the structures 
are quite simple (3, 5, & 6 carbon chains). Flourish Excel does not 
contain these specific compounds per se, but one that is quite 
similar. It is in its structural similarity that Flourish Excel is 
able to be utilized in the carbon chain building process of 
photosynthesis. Simple chemical or enzymatic steps can easily convert 
it to any one of the above named compounds (or a variety of others).

> Does this affect the pH as CO2 gas does?
No, it does not affect pH.

>Does Excel's added carbon work enough to provide plants what they 
need without the need of CO2 injection?
That depends on your definition of need ;-) We have been using the 
product here for several years (during the testing phase) and all of 
our planted tanks have been doing extraordinarily well. We do not use 
any CO2 injection. We usually have to cut and trim every few weeks or 
so. However, if your goal is to have the kind of growth where you 
would need to cut and trim weekly (because the plants grow out of the 
tank every week) then you're not going to see that with Flourish 
Excel as the sole carbon source. But using Flourish Excel as the sole 
source of carbon is certainly not going to leave the plants lacking 
for carbon by any stretch.

> Does Excel offer additional benefits to a planted tank?
It helps to maintain iron in the ferrous (Fe+2) state which is more 
easily utilized by the plants.

>. Are there any enviornmental factors in the tank that either 
impede or increase Excel's effectivness?
The use of a skimmer will tend to remove it, especially if the tank 
is somewhat "dirty" (i.e. hazy looking, lots of detritus floating 
around etc).

> Can algae feed on Excel?
No. I'm sure this may raise a few eyebrows ;-) since at face value 
this would be a reasonable expectation. But, for reasons Uncle Sam 
won't let us discuss, all I can say is that algae can't feed on Excel 
and I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to deduce why this 
is the case (big picture folks, no chemistry involved ;-).

Gregory Morin, Ph.D.  ~~~~~~~Research Director~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seachem Laboratories, Inc.      www.seachem.com     888-SEACHEM

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