No pearling? something wrong?

A

A649475

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Nov 13, 2009
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I'm a novice when it comes to plants so...

I got a 15g tank with a 23 watts daylight fluorescent bulb on top of it, and recently I added a DIY CO2 system to it. The CO2 diffuses into the water easily, there is no much turbulence, and to my understanding, the lighting is decent.

BUT my plants, anacharis and I think hornwort, do not pearl or show any signs of bubbles EXCEPT for when I do a water change. During that time is when I see the plants coming to life with oxygen bubbles around them and all that stuff.

So... I dont really know what I am doing wrong. Why are my plants pearling right after I do a water change but not on the other days. Is this a sign that something is missing?

I don't think its my lighting system as it the plants pearl when I do a water change.

Also, I don't have a substrate especially for plants. I'm thinking of buying it and getting more plants in the future.
 
I had the same question when I first started with planted tanks and it has something to do with gas exchange and sometimes plants have holes in them and they start filling up with water and the bubbles escape.

How are you diffusing your CO2? I would use a small powerhead and use the venturi hole and stick the end of the CO2 in so the CO2 is chopped up and is diffused through the entire tank. Also, a higher lighting will make is better for plants to pearl. Note that not every plant will pearl. Baby Tears (or HM) will pearl but have never seen others do it. There exceptions and stuff.
 
Im just letting the Co2 go to this upside down closed tray. The tray fills up so I stopp the CO2 from coming into the tank. I know it diffuses into the water since the air levels drops considerably after an hour. I just started adding Co2 in my tank and by "just started" i mean yesterday, so I dont know much about it either. I heard diffusers are the way to go, but my tank isnt really heavily planted, so I dont think saturating the tank with CO2 will benefit anything. I could end up intoxicating the fish with such high CO2 levels. My tank is 15 gallons again.
 
yup. Im going to try doubling the lights tomorrow and see what happens. And also, like I said before, the plants do pearl after water changes, but not the following days.
 
first of all you have barely over a watt per gallon. not too much lighting at all. i wouldnt really epect to get much pearling from that.
i think if i remember right that the new water has a higher level of co2 in it. also i think that it has a higher level of oxygen. so if the water is more saturated with oxygen it wont dissolve into the water when it comes off of the plants. so it bubbles up and goes to the surface.
you substrate prob has nothing to do with your plants, especially if they arent really heavy root feeders. anacharis and horwort get their nutrients from the water and not the substrate. are you fertilizing your tank?
most plants will pearl from my experience if under proper conditions (co2, lights, and ferts)
your plants will benefit the most from co2 levels at 30ppm. you can dissolve co2 completly the way you are or you can shoot tiny bubbles all ove the tank. see what works best for you. i've read a lot about people saying that the tiny bubbles of co2 that land under the leafs are better for the plants and cause more pearling. i personally use a reactor and dissolve the co2, but i've been having some problems. so i'm gonna experiment with the micro buble method or the microbubble and reactor at the same time to see what i can get to work best.
as long as you monitor your tank you dont have to worry about poisoning your fish. co2 should be kept around 30ppm. although not very accurate you can test your kh and ph and use this calculator to estimate ppm of co2 in your tank
 
I don't think there's any need for CO2 in a tank with just over 1 wpg. And I agree with Tim that you won't get much pearling at that light level.

I've had low-light planted tanks for a couple years now, and have never seen my plants pearling, but they're all happy and healthy.
 
^^^ Agree.

What you see after WC is not pearling, it is just air dissolved in water since you aerate by pouring/filling/agitating water during WC. I don't think your lighting or co2 is enough to see pearling. I used to have a 30w CFL over 10 g with DIY CO2 + HOB filter and although my plants grew like crazy, I didn't see much pearling until I changed the light to 36w PC+ double the co2 bottle and upgrade the HOB to a canister with EI dosing. Just changing the light also won't really help, and you will likely get a huge algae bloom, so unless you are ready with better co2 diffusion and fertilizer plan, I wouldn't try it.
Personally, as long as all the plants grow okay, I wouldn't really care about pearling. I would try some more low light easy growing plants and see if that works out. And I would definitely change co2 diffusing method to something more efficient. It will make a huge difference.
 
Okay, so I did my reading on plants and I'm planning to up the lighting to about 46 watts. Like you guys said, I would need to diffuse the CO2 better, SO... people say the effective way to do it is by using a powerhead and let it do its job with the CO2. So I was wondering what you guys thought of doing it this way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XjFUQv-2i8

Also, will adding a powerhead to my 15g be too much? Or I can just let the CO2 run under a wooden block and let it get chopped up by the HOB?

I'll start looking into ferts.
 
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