Question about pearling

Tuljan

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Sep 9, 2005
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Zagreb Croatia
This is my first post so before anything i want say hello from Croatia
I will tray to be short because of my terrible English
I was cote in despite over pearling.
Usual my pearling start after 8-9 hours of light ( light period is 11 hours) but when i reset aquarium ( change 70-80% of water ) it starts practically at once. Is that because i saturate water with O2 or CO2.
I believe it is a meter of extra CO2 and greater clearness of water, not because of extra O2.
I mean can pearling be visible if water is not saturate with O2?
I believe it can because when i ad en extra light over one 250 l tank ( usual it is lighten whit 120 w MH and i add 800w reflector for picturing it ) plants start pearling like crazy in two minutes.
Not enough time for plants to change saturation of water with O2
 

Frolicsome_Flora

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Jan 12, 2007
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Welcome to the forum :)

Pearling wont be caused by O2, but by CO2.

The plants vigorously pearling once you've carried out a water change could well be down to clarity of water, causing more light to get to the plants than it was before.

The other thing it could be is O2 bubbles sitting on the foliage carried there by the newly added water, rather than coming from the plants themselves. This happens when I water change as my tap water comes out incredibly oxygenated.


Adding extra light will generally start the plants pearling, but bear in mind that the more light you add, the faster the plants will take up nutrients, and the more you'll have to feed them, and the more careful you'll have to be in getting things totally right.

This is a lesson Ive had to learn (Tom says this over and over again all through this forum), as Tom says, more light > more CO2 takeup > more nutrient takeup > more concentration on dosing and just about everything else.

While lots of pearling is lovely to see, I wonder if concentrating too much on that, will lead you to catastrophic problems later on unless your really really attentive on whats going on.

Its far better to have things under more control. As a wise man/woman once said, 'the only quick things that happen in an aquarium are BAD'
 

Tom Barr

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Jan 23, 2005
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Tuljan;13245 said:
This is my first post so before anything i want say hello from Croatia
I will tray to be short because of my terrible English
I was cote in despite over pearling.
Usual my pearling start after 8-9 hours of light ( light period is 11 hours) but when i reset aquarium ( change 70-80% of water ) it starts practically at once. Is that because i saturate water with O2 or CO2.
I believe it is a meter of extra CO2 and greater clearness of water, not because of extra O2.
I mean can pearling be visible if water is not saturate with O2?
I believe it can because when i ad en extra light over one 250 l tank ( usual it is lighten whit 120 w MH and i add 800w reflector for picturing it ) plants start pearling like crazy in two minutes.
Not enough time for plants to change saturation of water with O2

Well, I've been to Zagreb and most of what was Yugoslavia.
It was an nice place back then.
Hopefully things are getting better.

If you can read Slovaian, I had an article come out in that language recently.
You can type and speak better English than I could any of the languages spoken there. Do not feel bad about your English skills.

Try adding more CO2 slowly.
Add just a small amount more.
Then watch the aquarium.
Then if all looks well, add a small amount more CO2.
Watch the plants.
Watch the fish for signs of gasping for at the water's surface.

Reduce the CO2 if you see any probelms with the fish.

Make sure there is enough water surface movenment.
You can always add more CO2 for the plants, but the fish are more important.

Plants will pearl even if the water is not saturated with O2(O2 at 100 % saturation). All they need is a peroid of good growth: light, CO2 and ample nutrients.

Regards,
Tom Barr