Should my plants be pearling

Glennster

Junior Poster
Aug 15, 2006
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Should my plants be pearling like crazy all the time when the lights once the lights have been on a couple hours?

About a week ago I discovered Tom Barr's method. I have about 2.5 watts per gallon in a 50 gallon tank, with CO2 of around 20-30 ppm, though its tough for me to tell with the inaccurate ph testers. I pump CO2 into the water line after it comes out of the canister filter, but before it enters the aquarium. It then pumps out an outlet value near the top of the water line, hopefully creating adequate distribution of CO2. If I raise the CO2 any more, my fish tend to freak.

For about a week, I have been heavily dosing with phosphates (through liquid enema), NO3 (via Kent ProPlant), and trace elements (Kent Freshwater Plant Formula K,Fe, Miconutrient supp.), though it was kind of unscientific, because I was having trouble figuring out the right amount of everything to put in. Everything was great and the plants were pearling like crazy and seemed to be growing quickly.

Then I saw a small amount of cyano, so last night I decided to do a 50% water change. Prior to my water change, I had NO3 of about 12.5. I syphoned up as much mulm as I could and stirred up gravel in much of the tank to reduce the mulm further. I calculated that for EI, I want to dose about:

2375 mg of NO3; and
285 mg of PO4.

I decided to put in extra NO3 because the readings before the water change were low (12.5 ppm) and I wanted to make up for that deficiency. So, I added about 3100 mg of NO3. After the water change, my test showed I had about 25 ppm NO3.

Today, virtually no pearling. I'm not freaked out, but I'm very surprised. Btw, I have NO2 of about 0.3 ppm, so maybe that's the issue?

Any guesses people?

Glenn
 

Glennster

Junior Poster
Aug 15, 2006
8
0
1
Re: Should my plants be pearling

I checked my ammonia, and it was testing .3 ppp, so I figured maybe I'd check the canister filter which I hadn't changed in a long time, back when there were a lot of fish in the tank. Very gross. Tons of dark brown matter. Also doing another 50% water change. Hopefully these things will correct the problem.
 

Glennster

Junior Poster
Aug 15, 2006
8
0
1
Re: Should my plants be pearling

Did the water change with EI dosing. NH3/4 levels dropped to be no longer readable. The tank is pearling away again.

Some pics of my tank. Not sure if either of these will show up:

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Glennster

Junior Poster
Aug 15, 2006
8
0
1
Re: Should my plants be pearling

Some more pics

My set up:
531228999305_0_ALB.gif


Happy Cardinals:
489238999305_0_ALB.gif


My glosso is filling in and I'm going to cover the driftwood with riccia:
903848999305_0_BG-1.gif


I have a fishtank [/I]and a girlfriend! :gw
144908999305_0_ALB.gif
 

Wet

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Aug 25, 2006
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Re: Should my plants be pearling

Cute chick ;)

You'll see pearling when the tank has oxygen saturation, so oxygen from the plants can no longer dissolve into the water column. It's okay if a tank doesn't show pearling: if the plants are growing and algae is low, it just means the water is not saturated with O2. Trust the plants and algae instead. Pearling Riccia sure is sweet, though :)
 

Tom Barr

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Re: Should my plants be pearling

Just keep up on it till it grows in or better yet, add more weeds.

It's very lightly planted.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Greg Watson

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Re: Should my plants be pearling

czado said:
Cute chick ;)

You'll see pearling

I would recommend that you focus on pearls for the girlfriend and just not worry about pearling for your plants ... there are priorities ...

Greg
 

Tom Barr

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Re: Should my plants be pearling

Good advice indeed, when she's happy, you will be happy.
So "be excellent to one another" as Bill and Ted once said.

Dose, add good CO2 and the plants will happy as well, and when they are happy, so will you.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Tom Barr

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Re: Should my plants be pearling

Then maybe she will let you have another tank.

Regards,
Tom Barr