Plants Fizzing

[caribou]

A few of my plants are sending up a small trail of bubbles when the lights are on. Is this a good sign or bad? I using pressurized CO2 with a regulator in a 90 gal tank. Bubbles per minute are 60. Many of my plants are new, but were bunch plants that are now really sprouting a lot of roots.

 

[rich311k]

That is a very good sign. Your plants are pumping out O2. Nicely done congrats.

 

[caribou]

Thanks for the complement, my tank is going through many changes right now. Some plants look great, others are going through a molt of leaves. Do you think 60 bubbles per minute is enough for a 90 gal?

 

[greenmaji]

test your KH and your PH.. check out a CO2 chart.. 2-5 bpm is normal.. you might have alot more CO2 then you need.. HTH
by the way bubbles per min is not a very accurate way of measuring CO2 usage.. but 60 is a huge number..

 

[caribou]

Thanks for the advice, I will back my bubble count down and trust the controller to do its job. I have been testing ph, its running a 7.1, as set on the controller. Will check KH tomorrow.

 

[malkore]

So, are these small bubbles, like the size of a pin head, or are they tiny bubbles, the size of the point of a pin?

larger bubbles that don't flow in a steady stream...is called pearling and indicates the water has reached oxygen saturation...so the O2 the plants are respiring cannot dissolve and thus form visible 'pearls' of pure oxygen that float to the surface when they get boyant enough.

tiny bubles that do flow in a stream...is called streaming and indicates micro-trauma to the plants...which are 'bleeding' oxygen from the wounds. Saturation of oxygen is not needed for streaming, because the plants aren't respiring this oxygen, they are losing it due to a cut in the plant tissue that transports the O2 around.

So in general, pearling is good, streaming is bad. However, in a new tank that's getting stabilzed, you can't expect the plants to be perfect and without tiny tears in leaves and stems. The fact that they are suddenly streaming is a good indication that they are photosynthisizing at a good rate. Good fertiliization and care of the plants will help them repair this damage...and then you may very well see true pearling.

 

[caribou]

Yes, these are pin head or smaller bubbles and they are coming from some of my newer plants (swords, anubia). I not seeing any pearling yet. A lot of my bunch plant are producing roots higher up on the stems. I'm trying to keep my CO2 backed off but its hard to keep my needle valve set on the low end. Its not the most sensitive piece of equip. I've ever had. My tap nitrates seem to have gone through the roof, or maybe my test kit has gone bad. They were at 50 even after my weekly 50% change. I'm having my tap water tested on Monday to see where I'm really at. Lab tests in Feb showed my tap water at 11.7. With all of this, my fish are doing o.k., my angels spawn about every 2 weeks. BTW KH - 14, ph - 7.1, ammonia - 0.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Check out this link for calculating your ppm CO2: http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm
From your values I get 33 ppm, which is rather high, unless you have very high light. The normal suggested max is 25. Above 35 it makes it hard for fish to breathe.

 

[caribou]

AG: Thanks for the link, it was very helpful. I have a paper chart, but this link was so much more fine tuned. I will adjust my ph controller but still plan on having my tap water tested. Thanks for the help.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

My tap water started killing my fish, even when it was 50/50 with RO so I have switched to all RO. How much light do you have on your tank?

 

[caribou]

I've tried the 50/50 RO as well and have had mixed results. I can only hold 20 gls of RO which isn't enough for a 50% water change on a 90. My WPG are 2.9. This morning my ph was 7.4, KH was 15, CO2 17.9, according to calculating site. These are better parameters for CO2, my tap nitrate is my biggest concern right now. I'm also having my water checked for phosphate levels.

 

[travis simonson]

It sounds like you need to slowly increase your bubble rate on CO2 until you hit 7.3 or 7.2 pH. You have some very hard water but that shouldn't be much of an obstacle to keeping quite a few varieties of plants. I keep my KH at 12-14 and have been able to keep many plants that are supposedly soft water-only plants. Also don't worry to much about your tap NO3 levels. I've never seen any city supply that put out more than 3-5 ppm NO3 at the tap. Do a test of NO3 at the tap and it should give you a good idea of how much NO3 to supplement.

 

[greenmaji]

25ppm of CO2 is a decent goal..
Im sure travis's advice on PH numbers will get you there or better though..
tap water is not going to have enough nutrients to throw your planted tank off IMO.. I really doubt it anyway (unless for some reason you get a PO4 spike above .5ppm) so your tap water should be fine.. HTH

 

[caribou]

I didn't mention that my tap water comes from a rural well in an area known for very high nitrates. When irrigatiion season started, our nitrate levels almost double and I started having some trouble with my fish. I had hoped that the levels would subside this fall. A few miles away from us, NO3 can be as high 28 from a domestic well. Thanks to everybody for all of the great input!!!