# Will Plants Pearl Without Co2 Addition?



## essabee (Oct 11, 2006)

Assume I have good 3+ WPG lights on, no CO2 addition, an aerator going through a diffuser into the suction of a powered Filter. 

1)	Will I find my plants pearling?
2)	How long will be duration of the pearling if any?
3)	Will there be pearling even if the aerators are left on 24/7?
4)	Are you speaking from experience or theoretically?


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## gibmaker (Jan 3, 2007)

they may if everything else is in good condition, but very very very little


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## bigtroutz (Nov 17, 2006)

From my experience, certain plants (fast growing stems) in a 20G non-co2 tank will pearl late in the day quite strongly, even with vigorous aeration from a sponge filter. Other plants did not pearl or did so quite sparsely.

When I was running a 12 hour light cycle, they would start pearling about 8 hours into the light cycle and continue until the lights went out. 

I don't see it much anymore because I cut back the photoperiod to 8 hours to control alage and removed the fast growing stem plants (too much pruning chores)


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## zQ. (Dec 15, 2006)

almost the plants will Pearl after a water change,so give it a try !


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## Jubs (Mar 24, 2006)

I may be off a bit but its my understanding that pearling is caused from the amount of gases in the water.

I think it really depends on the amount of Co2 in your water as the pearling is from the displacement of gases. Water can only hold so much gas and when there is an excess of a it will form a bubble.Since the the plants are producing the oxygen with the high amount of Co2 being in the water this forces the oxygen to form a bubble instead of diffusing into the water.

The statement of after a water change more than likely has to do with the amount of Co2 in the new water as some sources of water have higher amounts of Co2 in them.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Pearling is caused when the water is saturated in oxygen from the photosynthetic activities of your plants. No more oxygen can be dissolved in the water, so the bubbles we call 'pearling' are formed. 

Do you have a carbon source in this tank? With 3 wpg and no CO2 or Excel, I would doubt you'd see much of any pearling. You might soon see algae, however.

Why are you injecting air into your filter's uptake?


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