# Plants not pearling



## @[email protected] (Jul 10, 2006)

I have a 2 months old tank that's 2/3 planted. Substrate is aquasoil. Photoperiod is 9 hrs. I dose K and trace every other day. CO2 is DIY. So the question is, why are my plants not pearling even with freshly made DIY CO2 (I do see lots of bubbles coming out of my glass diffuser).
Plants are HC, riccia, rotala wallichii, didiplis.
Any thoughts?


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Plants will grow only to the extent that they have nitrates and phosphates to feed on, in addition to potassium and traces. If you aren't dosing nitrates and phosphates you aren't likely to see pearling.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

I was dosing NPK, no micros and no CO2 before. Nothing was pearling.

Ever since I started my CO2, the riccia is pearling nicely, and there's a steady stream of oxygen bubbles coming from the other plants...it's the complete nutrition of the plants, so like hoppy said, NPK + CO2 and you should see pearling.

Good luck!


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

For pearling O2 production must be greater than O2 loss by respiration and passive loss to the atmosphere.

You need:
1. High O2 production (think lots of fast-growing stemmies with high metabolism)
2. Low O2 consumption - few fish
3. High light
4. High CO2
5. No limitting nutrients
6. Low gas exchange at the surface (low turbulence)

If ALL of the above are met you _might_ get pearling, but you will get healthy, fast-growing plants, which is usually the goal.


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## eklikewhoa (Jul 24, 2006)

i dose all micros and macros, co2, high light, just about everything and i only occasionally get pearling.


but when i do get pearling its everything! moss, ferns, hm, pennywort, all of it!


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

Agree with all of the above, pearling sometimes happens and sometimes it doesn't. 

Though it should be noted that Riccia tends to be an easy "pearler" under high light. If you have high lights you're lightly to see more pearling provided that all the nutrients are provided (C02, all ferts). 

Higher light = Hungry Plants = More O2 Production --> Water O2 saturation

-John N.


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## @[email protected] (Jul 10, 2006)

I got 2 discus, 17 cardinals, 2 cats, 2 otos, 3 endlers, and couple dozen shrimps. I always thought they would provide enough NP for my tank, but I guess it's still not enough.
Actually, the only time I get pearling is when I change water... hmm, maybe I need to go for a pressurized CO2 instead of DIY?


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## essabee (Oct 11, 2006)

Pearling after water change - is bruised plant pearling. Instead of spending on pressure CO2 why not add another bottle to your CO2 DIY line and a little nitrate and phosphate fertiliser to the tank. Your plants appear to be at the theshold of pearling.


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## David W. A. (Aug 22, 2006)

@[email protected],

I had pearling problems when I started.... this ended up being my issue(s) after getting right supposedly

1) bubble rate - the pressurized CO2 regulator pumped out little bubbles, but the hose in the water pumped significantly less, so what I thought was 4 bubbles per second at the regulator was actually 1 bubble per second at the tank. My tank is 120 gal, so this obviousely is dismal. With a DIY CO2 unit you probably see the bubbles right.

2) I eliminated surface turbulance completely after some advise from APC forum member "Salt" and the difference is night and day. Assuming you have all the other elements in place, cut surface turbulance to see what you get and then add it back in a guage the results. In other words, you may be putting it in, but it may going right back out.

After trying everything, no pearling, these two things tripped me up. I now have a little surface turbulance on purpose, so that I have some mechanical filtration, and it does lower my pearling a bit. I know what my bubble count really is. 

All the other things have to be in place - ferts, lights, CO2, like everyone is advising

One word of caution, if you go with the EI method of ferts, and buy ferts from Watson, be aware,... you don't get all the stuff you need in the pre made fert kits. Hoppycalif is right, get the nitrates and phosphates and the trace things. 

You don't mention your wattage? I had 260 watts on 120 gals and bumped it to 390 watts and it makes a difference, so the 2 watts per gallon rule might be a starting place for pearling, the more the better.

One last comment... I find this frustrating... If you have fish in the tank too you will probably find that optimum plant growth with pearling doesn't work well for the fish. My experience is when I crank the CO2 and cut the surface turbulance I get massive late night O2 depletion from the plants sucking the tank completely of O2. If I put in and run some sort of timed water agitation late night to off set this, the tank increases O2 fine, but then I get 1.5 to 2 point PH swings, which doesn't work well for the fish. I settled on modest pearling and happy fish. 

good luck


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## @[email protected] (Jul 10, 2006)

David:

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I'm using lilypipe for outflow, so surface agitation is minimal. There is no splash of water whatsoever.
For nutrient, I have all (including trace) except NP, so maybe that'll be on my list in the future.
I have 96w coral life 7500K on my 33gallon tank, that comes to ~3wpg.
For now, I've never seen my fish gasping for air, so I guess I can push the CO2 a little more.
Anyway, thanks everyone for the help. I will play around with ferts and CO2 to try and find a balance!


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