FishProfiles.com Message Forums

OMG, OMG, OMG. Can you tell I'm excited? My 10g planted tank is sitting in the sun right now, this only happens for about an hour each day. The plants are pearling! Little streams of bubbles are coming off the amazon sword! I am using Excel, and this is probably why it is happening, but I have been wondering if it was possible for a tank to have pearling without a CO2 injector. Now I know. Is it the excel causing this or would it have happened on it's own. That's a question for the experts. I'll just sit back and enjoy!
/:'

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

Let's see - high intensity lighting with soluble carbon provided by Excel. Sounds like a recipe or an equation for happy plants!

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

I'm guessing it was a combination of the intense sunlight and the excel. It hasn't happened again and we're losing that intense sunshine. It's supposed to start snowing right away. I am also putting up a shade on that window because all that sunshine will produce algae. I wonder if the plants will release any bubbles with just the excel? The tank wattage is just about 2wpg. 15 watt bulb, 10gal tank - 8 l of gravel? Is that the right math?

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

luvmykrib,

If they do release bubble with just the Excel then you have to tell me your secret .

My 29G with 2.25 wpg never bubbles, except right after the water change, and that might be oxigen that was introduced when pouring the water back in the tank.

Good call that you put up a shade. As nice as bubbling is, algae is not something you would like to get in return. BTW, I believe to have observed that of all plants algae is the one that bubbles easiest.

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I get random bubbles in both tanks but I think it's O2 from the filters (HOB AC 50 and mini), although sometimes it's nowhere near the water return. Had to be the sunlight! And though it was neat I'm not ready to tackle the kind of growth you guys get with CO2 and better light!

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

My 5g tank will pearl with just excel. It has 4wpg plus a small amount of sunlight in the morning from a north window.

I was just at the tropica website(www.tropica.com) and I read an article about CO2 and light. It basically said that even in low-light conditions, the addition of CO2 will help plants grow and better utilize the light available. Which means that when I am ready for rampant growth by my plants I can add CO2 without increasing light wattage. I still may not be able to keep the really high-light plants, but I may be able to use some of the medium-light plants. I wonder how much CO2 excel is able to substitute for to provide this growth? Does that make sense? I'm getting tired. Must go to bed soon, but I wanted to share this with everyone, and get your opinions on it.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

luvmykrib,

The math on WPG for small tanks is a little fuzzy, take a look at [link=This Thread]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Planted%20Aquaria/66108.html" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link] – there is a lot of information just in this topic. I would say that your tank (10G and 15W = 1.5wpg) is a low light tank.

My guts feeling tells me that you should not be able to grow higher light plants and also that you would not be able to see rampant grows on 1.5wpg and Excel alone. Nevertheless, I would love you to proof me wrong.

You know that plants need 3 things besides water to grow: a carbon source, fertilizer, and light. You provide Excel for the carbon and I am not familiar with your fertilizer routine (but that is something that can be changed/enhanced) without changing the tank setup), but you just don’t have the right light (Sham mentiones she has 4wpg, way more than you do). Will your plants grow better with the Excel? Sure, but just not rampant and not higher light requiring forms. Sunlight is x-times more intense than any tank light, but one hour per day would be insufficient. This time span would have to be increases to at least 3 hours (plus the regular tank light for 10 to 12 hours) and then you run the risk of a serious algae outbreak.

In any way, it would be interesting to see how it all progresses so keep us posted.

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Oh well, I'm not ready for rampant growth yet anyway. I barely get to prune my garden outside. I just thought the article was interesting. I am toying with the idea of getting CO2 for the 25g and increasing the light a bit. For the 10g though I will let the plants do their thing with the light it has and using excel as a carbon source. The rest of my fertilizer routine is as follows.
Plant-Gro N,P,K weekly following water tests and water change. Daily dose of excel, 1ml in the morning. Bi-monthly break 1-2 jobes fert. stick(s) and distribute evenly under plants. Monthly use Flourish Trace or water from purifier (5 stage filtration, clay adds minerals to water before it comes out). I haven't found the trace yet but the purified water does the trick for now. The lfs doesn't carry very many of seachem's or other plant ferts. So I have to make do with what I can find. The fertilizer regimen was borrowed from an article on the krib I believe about growing great plants in low-light without CO2. I adapted it to my 25 and 10g.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus