# Pearling Without CO2!



## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

I'm extremely excited to have not only seen pearling for the first time in person but also have achieved it without CO2! I am however using daily Excel doses, with very bright lighting. This photo is about a month old, I need to take a new one because it is fully carpeted now...spreading like wildfire with a consistent nitrate level of about 10-15ppm. I had invested in a 5lb aluminum tank with the electric valve, and the glass hardware but never got around to installing it. The light runs for 4 hours in the morning, then 6 in the evening/night...I dose the Excel as close to the beginning of the second lighting (6 hour) cycle as I can. I am sure it is nothing compared to CO2 injection, I can see the bubbles rapidly rising from different areas consistently but I can not see any bubbles on the plants themselves yet. I am almost certain they are not substrate gas bubbles.


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## Kubla (Jan 5, 2014)

Your carpet is filling in nicely!


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

What light is that?


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

The lighting consists of 3 LED bulbs off eBay (have no idea) and a $20 goose neck light from Walmart.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Good choice on the repurposed lamp. I often see so many of them being given away on Craigslist and have often thought they would make an excellent way to place lights on smallish tank where we might have trouble mounting at different places. 
I don't recognize the lamp bulb holders. Did you mod them or remove the glass canopy from the original light? I'm sure there may be several folks who would like the method.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Teebo said:


> ...I can see the bubbles rapidly rising from different areas consistently but I can not see any bubbles on the plants themselves yet. I am almost certain they are not substrate gas bubbles.


Looks nice, not to be a party pooper, but if you don't see bubbles on the plants I'm not sure how it can be pearling. Not impossible through I've seen plants pearl without co2 under good light and good substrate.


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

*Updated photo, in need for yet another trimming. *













PlantedRich said:


> Good choice on the repurposed lamp. I often see so many of them being given away on Craigslist and have often thought they would make an excellent way to place lights on smallish tank where we might have trouble mounting at different places.
> I don't recognize the lamp bulb holders. Did you mod them or remove the glass canopy from the original light? I'm sure there may be several folks who would like the method.


Thanks, I actually ran out and bought it new for $20 because I needed a temporary solution. The plan is I have a telescoping pole from a drum set symbol I removed from the tripod base, I have hardware to mount it to the back of my steel stand I just have to drill the holes and make something for sockets on the top. I am not a fan of the goose neck as this was extremely hard to get 3 bulbs level and all pointing at the same angle equally spaced apart. I never put the shades on this lamp when I bought it, well I did to see what it would look like but I did not like it because they draw your eye away from the tank. As long as your looking at it from a higher height than the bulbs all you see is the shadowed back of the bulb keeping the space above the tank generally dark, but the shades stuck out into the casting light as it spreads making the entire shades glow. 




houseofcards said:


> Looks nice, not to be a party pooper, but if you don't see bubbles on the plants I'm not sure how it can be pearling. Not impossible through I've seen plants pearl without co2 under good light and good substrate.


Yeah I thought about this after posting, and I totally understand your point. Pearling are the bubbles visually on the plants, not necessarily the process of the bubbles rising. I am not able to see deep enough into the plants to see exactly where the bubbles keep coming from (consistently in different spots) so it may be pearling I just cant see where. Also the bubbles are extremely small, so even if I could see the leaf or grass strand they are rising off I think it would be hard to see the bubble itself on the plant... they are the size of a pin head.


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## X45 (Dec 20, 2016)

Teebo said:


> Thanks, I actually ran out and bought it new for $20 because I needed a temporary solution. The plan is I have a telescoping pole from a drum set symbol I removed from the tripod base, I have hardware to mount it to the back of my steel stand I just have to drill the holes and make something for sockets on the top. I am not a fan of the goose neck as this was extremely hard to get 3 bulbs level and all pointing at the same angle equally spaced apart. I never put the shades on this lamp when I bought it, well I did to see what it would look like but I did not like it because they draw your eye away from the tank. As long as your looking at it from a higher height than the bulbs all you see is the shadowed back of the bulb keeping the space above the tank generally dark, but the shades stuck out into the casting light as it spreads making the entire shades glow.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I get lots of bubbles in my tanks. No co2. I run high light. EL, excel. 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


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## Bryce (Mar 11, 2018)

That's a nice setup! It would be algea garden for me. I never had any luck with high light and no pressurized Co2. How long has this been set up?


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## Tsin21 (Sep 24, 2017)

Pearling is possible even without CO2 injection. The plants in the tubs which I placed outside pearl like crazy when in direct sunlight.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Tsin21 said:


> Pearling is possible even without CO2 injection. The plants in the tubs which I placed outside pearl like crazy when in direct sunlight.


Yes, I don't disagree, but we aren't talking about sunlight here, we're talking about a gooseneck light from Walmart.


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

Bryce said:


> That's a nice setup! It would be algea garden for me. I never had any luck with high light and no pressurized Co2. How long has this been set up?


Thanks, about 3 months old. 



houseofcards said:


> Yes, I don't disagree, but we aren't talking about sunlight here, we're talking about a gooseneck light from Walmart.


Its really about the light itself, not the stand. Those bulbs were all bought separate from the stand.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Teebo said:


> ...
> Its really about the light itself, not the stand. Those bulbs were all bought separate from the stand.


I know, it was really tongue in cheek. Point I'm making is the sun is a LITTLE stronger.


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## Tsin21 (Sep 24, 2017)

houseofcards said:


> Yes, I don't disagree, but we aren't talking about sunlight here, we're talking about a gooseneck light from Walmart.





houseofcards said:


> I know, it was really tongue in cheek. Point I'm making is the sun is a LITTLE stronger.


You've caught me!:grin2:

Kidding aside though, I'm kinda on the side that good lighting plus other factors (species, health, nutrients) can cause pearling just lately. Specially on rapidly growing plants. I've witnessed this other instance when I ran out of CO2 for about a week and I was dosing excel. My carpet of glossos were full on pearling mode but all other plants were not. Before I was a firm believer of the oxygen saturation=pearling side but after more research and experience, I'm not discounting one over the other but now I believe that it can happen depending on the circumstances.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Tsin21 said:


> ...My carpet of glossos were full on pearling mode but all other plants were not. Before I was a firm believer of the oxygen saturation=pearling side but after more research and experience, I'm not discounting one over the other but now I believe that it can happen depending on the circumstances.


I do not subscribe to the oxygen saturation theory. That is not true pearling to me, because it simply means the entire water column is too saturated, which would usually require a tank full of plants and would make pearling impossible in thinly planted one (unless saturated by artificial means) 

It's really based on how fast a particular plant is photosynthesising. It's producing o2 at such a fast pace it can't be absorbed, which of course is usually when co2 is provided, but I do agree it can happen without it under certain situations.


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## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

The only bubbles I ever saw with the use of Excel was algae dying back. H2O2 will do the same thing. >


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## Tsin21 (Sep 24, 2017)

houseofcards said:


> I do not subscribe to the oxygen saturation theory. That is not true pearling to me, because it simply means the entire water column is too saturated, which would usually require a tank full of plants and would make pearling impossible in thinly planted one (unless saturated by artificial means)
> 
> It's really based on how fast a particular plant is photosynthesising. It's producing o2 at such a fast pace it can't be absorbed, which of course is usually when co2 is provided, but I do agree it can happen without it under certain situations.


Agree!


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## Teebo (Jul 15, 2015)

I can confirm I am pearling with Excel, I found the source of the bubbles and can see them on some of the baby tears before they rise off. Oxygen saturation sounds like a total cheat, if the oxygen did not come from the plants themselves via photosynthesis then its not pearling to me.


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