Yay first time a saw a plant pearling

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Talon242

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
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New York
About 1hr after cleaning my tank I noticed that one of my water sprite plants was pearling. They may have pearled before but this is the first time I seen it. :D
 
Congrats! I remember my "Pearling!" post so the excitement is not lost on me - that's how you know you are doing it right (streaming from trimmed stem plants does not count.... :twisted: )
 
Arg. Don't mean to burst your bubble (so to speak), and I could be wrong... But I've noticed that plants, and indeed other filamentous decorations often "pearl" after water changes and other cleaning operations. This is usually due to the agitation of the water during water replacement, and the addition of dissolved oxygen from tap water (which is under pressure, and often comes out looking very cloudy with bubbles) to the tank.

I could be totally wrong!! But I've noticed this before, and don't think that it is pearling. If I'm wrong, sorry! :wink: If you don't see it every morning from now on, this might be the reason. If you do see it, however, then I'm wrong, and you can gladly throw my remarks back in my face! :lol:
 
madasafish said:
Arg. Don't mean to burst your bubble (so to speak), and I could be wrong... But I've noticed that plants, and indeed other filamentous decorations often "pearl" after water changes and other cleaning operations. This is usually due to the agitation of the water during water replacement, and the addition of dissolved oxygen from tap water (which is under pressure, and often comes out looking very cloudy with bubbles) to the tank.

I could be totally wrong!! But I've noticed this before, and don't think that it is pearling. If I'm wrong, sorry! :wink: If you don't see it every morning from now on, this might be the reason. If you do see it, however, then I'm wrong, and you can gladly throw my remarks back in my face! :lol:

Thats what I thought it was at first then I looked closer and it came out of the same spot and it was an endless stream of tiny bubble for quite a while.
 
Right - good point. After a water change the plants will often be covered in bubbles from the new water, which will dissipate. I am talking about towards the end of the light cycle when the bubbles just appear - magic!
 
I'll let someone else expain pearling :wink: I don't trust myself to get all the terminology right!

Anyway, I read that even java moss can pearl if the conditions are right. I'm working on some low-level lighting for my tanks, but I don't have any CO2. So my moss may not pearl, but hopefully it will do ok. Congrats on your pearling, Talon242!
 
Plants release oxygen as a waste product of their photosynthesizing process. They use CO2, ammonium and nitrate, among other things, to power the process (all produced by having fish, thus the great relationship fish and plants have together). When the plants photosynthesize very effectively due to optimal light and nutrients the O2 builds up to a point where it forms bubbles, aka pearling. In general you can't see the O2 coming out of plants.
 
Ok, since you say it was an endless stream of tiny bubbles....that's not pearling.
That's called streaming, if its' like a line of almost microscopic bubbles.

Streaming occurs when a plant gets damaged, usually a micro tear/cut in the stem or leaf stem, which causes oxygen inside the plant to 'bleed' out quickly.

Actual pearling means the plant is photosynthesizing so quickly that the water gets saturated with oxygen. So the excess oxygen from the plants actually starts to pool up into a small bubble of pure oxygen. Eventually it gets big enough to float to the surface.

So again, streaming is tiny bubbles, the size of a period . caused by micro trauma to the plant
Pearling occurs if the water is super saturated with oxygen, and the bubbles are larger, usually the size of a pin head, or a small letter o

Some plants that tend to pearl vigorously are hygrophilia and glosso
 
I don't think the plant was damaged but when I finish up work this week I'll have time to watch and see if it was actual pearling or not.
 
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