Airation Causing Plant Pearling. WTF????

Just obvious,

An air stone or increasing surface movement just increases O2 in water. Plants pearl because water is saturated in O2.
Read EI guide here and many of the recent CO2 topics to see better how things go

Overall, adjusting CO2 with a PH meter is a bad idea, pushing CO2 in filter inlet is another bad idea as you expierienced it
Maybe try to think your CO2 diffusion differently. Also, having a good surface movement while injecting CO2 is what most here do

 

I'm sure that you know this, but if you don't ...

Try a test if you have time. Tweak your controller to get a medium green (not blue-green or lime green) color in the 4 dKH carbonate based solution drop checker. As you know, the green color indicates ± 30 ppm of CO2. Now, measure your KH of your aquarium water and note the pH of your water from your controller. Then find out your CO2 level using the chart/calculator. You should have a reading that you have much more than 30 ppm CO2.

What do you think?

 

I personally dropped my PH meter once I realized my tanks can go much better without it. It's hard to accept it once you have invested in such a tool, I know this very well, sadly. PH meter makes CO2 plays the yoyo + risks from the PH electrode going out of range despite regular maintenance. But, usually, in low light tanks it works fine as CO2 demand is much lower. I rarely, if never, saw a high tech tank doing stable on long term with a PH meter

There are many topics about it here. Anyway...

About your question, yes, plants will pearl when water is saturated in O2, otherwise, O2 dissolves and you won't see it.

 

I put adjust 3bps in the regulator, wait for 2 hours, then plants pearling A LOT!!! more than the aireator trick.

 

Your test is spot on if you are using the baking soda/distilled water mix that is close to lab accurate at 4 dKH. It's a somewhat rare exception to the way that it normally works out.

Some folks use their KH test kit to make a 4 dKH solution. This can be 'iffy' sometimes. Some folks use 4 dKH aquarium water and this can be a problem too.

Before the 4 dKH carbonate based drop checker when people were using the chart/calculator, some were reporting 70 to 150 psi of CO2 or something like that. I know that mine would be high because the water treatment plant adds a phosphate based pipe cleaner from time to time.

Well, at least you got your original question answered in this thread.

 

I do have both, the ph is not bad to use, here is what i do, open the co2 to max, then wait till the fish start to gasp for o2, look at the ph reading , then start going down if it is 6.1, iwill let the co2 stop at 6.4. usually my DC yellowish with kh4.
the point is you cant add any more co2 than that when there is fish.

 

A drop checker is put it and forget it, change solution every 1-3 months (I find that 1 month is not better than 2-3), adapt bubble count once, and voilà. I doubt PH electrodes are less maintenance, I used them for above a year. Even a good equippement will need a calibration every 1-2 weeks. Electrodes need to be changed yearly as they desperately deviate over time.

With yoyo I speak about CO2. PH swings don't affect plants or fish despite all what is said around. Otherwise, how people here can breed and keep most fish using EI and Tom recommendations? CO2 affects PH slowly as it is a weak acid (H2CO3). Plants need soluble CO2, so instant variations of it will affect growth while PH will need time to adapt. Also, all PH meters have usually a +/- 0.05 tolerance range bfore turning on/off the CO2. That is +/-0.1 PH. Despite the precision advertised by most manufactures, aquaristic material is really far away from a +/-0.01 PH error margin. The truth is rather around +/-0.2. Add it to KH fluctuations and you get important CO2 fluctuations in your tank. This is the worst for plants especially under high tech conditions.

How can you explain many beautiful scapes with RO users and low KH then? Plants don't care about KH, yet some plants can be harmed by a high KH. Fish, on many tropical areas thrive in very low KH waters ususlally. Some waters have a high PH yoyo natively too, fish just doesn't care. Gh and conductivity are more important for some species

The nano in my signature is changed with RO + Gh. KH of tank is 1, RCS and plants are just so happy, despite I'm using rather "difficult" plants and shrimps.

As with nutrients causing algae theory, many people assume that because they have a problem (algae, diseases, plants starvation...) and identify "an outside the limits factor", then that factor is the cause of their problem. As with your assumption of KH, if this was true, then how do you explain that my tanks do wonderful with high nutrients, PH swings and very low KH?

Anyway, I won't continue debating the CO2 regulation via PH-meter and KH/PH effects on plants and fish as it was already debated and explained many times by Tom here on even recent topics. Just make a search and you'll see that there are many realities in this hobby. The EI method and CO2 management proposed here are something with a strong evidence based approache.

Other methods can work, but could put you away from the real cause of disorders when they do happen.

 

all whats said is true in away, there are alot of green tanks with no co2 added, there are no wrong or right way of doing things, how come no copmpay gives you a 100% grantee that there set up will work, anyonw can follow instructions (fill up the tank to the marked line, hang the lights at 6in above the tank, follow the dosing schadule...)
alot of pepole using ph meterr with good results on the other hand some dont use them
the worst thing you can do is say thats the only way to do things.

 

As I said, I can fully believe that you have full success with your method. But many people have incredible success with just a constant CO2 flow using a high quality needlevalve-regulator combo and a drop checker.

CO2 concentration is not what makes every thing, CO2 mist is proved to be far more efficient than very high CO2 concentrations. A PH meter can't manage this.

A high KH enhancing CO2 diffusion is a long and never proved debate, based only on hypothetical observations. Also, many theories advocate the opposite: very high KH causing CO2 issues, but again, never proved with real evidence. If you inject 2bps of CO2 in two same tanks, but one with a KH of 2 and one with a KH of 6, the amount of dissolved CO2 will be just the same: same quantity dissolved in same volume gives same concentration. PH would probably be different depending on the buffer capacity, and not only KH as a buffer. PO4 is a much stronger buffer than HCO3 and in our EI based tanks it plays a role that a PH controller won't account for.

About electrodes, I'm in lab job and calibrating an electrode in an aquarium every 3 months is in my expierience a real gift you have there. By far, not most conditions will permit it because of algae, dust... Also a deviation of only 0.2 after 3 months is not common, but enough major in my estimation. It is usually a +/0.2, added to the +/- 0.2 error margin of the most common electrodes in the hobby (except professional matrial unavailable in the public market), you see the problem.

Now, it works for you, good, but it really doesn't work that good for most. Otherwise, controllers would have already been the miracle solution to algae.

Finally, if I remember well, Tom played with a CO2 meter and showed all these issues with PH/CO2/KH story. But, the CO2 meter also showed the limitation of the drop checker and classic CO2 injecting methods in large/deep tanks, thus the mist and flow ways to achieve good results.

As of your suggestion that I increase KH, my 60 gal have a 3-4°Kh because of some calcareous gravel and the nano you can see the gallery in my signature is RO+GH only, KH near 1 because of some buffer in the soil too. It's running since 5 months after 4 months of a DSM. I never got such a healthy growing tank with the slow growth and no decaying leaves after many months. So, I don't plan to test again my PH controller or increase KH in it. What I mean is that you can achieve very good growth despite different water parameters and material used. Some methods are cheaper and less complicated then others, all have their issues.

Finally, about natural water having high KH (as referenced by your tap water...), tap water is all but natural. KH is artificially increased in some areas by sodium bicarbonate. In other parts, PH is altered by other buffers. Most European regulations target for a PH>7.5-8 to avoid corrosion and early destruction of pipes. Most amazonian waters are near KH 0 with conductivities lower than 50. Soft natural waters here are of a KH lower than 1. Hard water sources usually come from lakes and calcareous regions. So, KH varry from 0 to +17 in natural sources.

Nice tank you ahve by the way.

 

[CO2 concentration is not what makes every thing, CO2 mist is proved to be far more efficient than very high CO2 concentrations. A PH meter can't manage this]

what is misting have to do with PH meter?, i usually set my ph meter at a lower level to turn the co2 off, which usually rarely happen, since my co2 setting allow continue to run all day. just in case something happen it will not kill the fish.
i run AM 1000 with OR PUMP, iT will turn the DC to yellow much,much faster than two rhinox 5000 diffuser in my 75g. (did the test wth the tank full of water only)

 

Look at misting here, nothing to do with AM1000 or Rhinox, rather wheel pumps or the Atomizer

 

i tried the atomizer, i did like it, works well, i actully stareed a thread a while back ( CO2 automizer) , its like the rhinox with a smaller bubbles, its misting too.
too much of it will not make the tank look clear.