# Planted Tanks > Plant Talk >  Getting Plants to Pearl

## Kristen

For a newly planted tank, generally how long does it take for the plants to begin to pearl? For all this time my tank has been planted (about two months), the plants have never pearled, but have grown quite a bit. What am I missing out?

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## zenscape

Depends on the type of plants, your fert regime, your light intensity and co2 ppm.

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## ongtw

for me, in addition to what zenscape mentioned, it also depends on the water movement. i noticed in my tank if the water movement is strong, my plants don't pearl or sometimes only a little.

when i tried to reduce my water movement to the minimum, all the plants pearl like crazy.

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## beetlejuice403

> For a newly planted tank, generally how long does it take for the plants to begin to pearl? For all this time my tank has been planted (about two months), the plants have never pearled, but have grown quite a bit. What am I missing out?


Guess as mentioned by Maurice, it really takes a lot of trial in balancing out the few parameters mentioned...

For me, was so excited to see my Riccia & my dipilis diandra producing tiny oxygen then... Still learning how to let my other flora have the same effects... :Smile:

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## Aquaculture

When O2 is saturated in your tank, pearling can be easily achieved. How much is correlated to the amount of lights & CO2 being used at that moment.

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## adalatla

> for me, in addition to what zenscape mentioned, it also depends on the water movement. i noticed in my tank if the water movement is strong, my plants don't pearl or sometimes only a little.
> 
> when i tried to reduce my water movement to the minimum, all the plants pearl like crazy.


Tried to get my riccia to pearl few mionths ago by adding lights. no effect until I increased the CO2 (beautiful pearling achieved, but...). End up with BBA and BGA. So as part of the parameter adjustment, incresed water flow. Pearling stopped, despite increasing CO2. Just curious why water flow stops pearling? Don't mind me borrowing your thread to get some answers.

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## ongtw

adalatla ,

i'm not very sure why too. for me, i was pumping in 1 to 1.5 bps of co2 and my lighting are 5 hours morning, 5 hours night with 5 hours interval in the middle where my lights are off.

any pros can englighten? maybe it was just luck for me? i tried it a few times. stop the water filter or reduce it to minimum. after a few hours they start to pearl

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## uklau

CO2 is often a limiting factor in a planted tank, especially in high light tanks. By supplying sufficient CO2 in a high light tank (coupled with sufficient macro & micro), plant's metabolisme rate is being accelerated. When the water in the tank becomes saturated with O2, plants start to show pearling effect. 

Water movement, especially at the water surface will lead to loss of dissolved CO2 in the tank, which may reduce the metabolisme rate (due to lack of one of the crucial nutrients) & cause the pearling effect to disappear.

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## Mizu World

Intense light and CO2 supplementation will get you pearling in a few hours (subject to tank size).

Oxygen is being produced all the time when lights are on. When the volume of water cannot hold any more dissolved gas, you get bubbles (pearling). 
How fast it does this depends on how much livestock you have (they take in O2) and the amount of disturbance in the water (filter flow, etc).

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## plant talk

> Intense light and CO2 supplementation will get you pearling in a few hours (subject to tank size).
> 
> Oxygen is being produced all the time when lights are on. When the volume of water cannot hold any more dissolved gas, you get bubbles (pearling). 
> How fast it does this depends on how much livestock you have (they take in O2) and the amount of disturbance in the water (filter flow, etc).


My plant also not pearling. I on the CO2 until the PH drop to 6.4.Only ricca pearl and taiwan mini moss pearl. All the other stem plant not pearling at all.
I got three DIY fan in my 2by 1.5by 1.5 tank.Lighting is 24 x 4 watt T5 light set. Could it be the fan that cause this problem?

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## BlackShrimp

IMO pearling is caused by the rate of oxygen produced by the plants is higher than the rate of oxygen dissolving into the water. 

i believe most bros tanks are condusive enough for pearling but it is just that their flowrate is too high. high flow rate means more volume of water pass your plants per period of time. this thus helps the rate of oxygen dissolving of water much faster. like stirring sugar in a coffee? more water pass by the sugar therefore it dissolve faster. so i believe the dissolving rate is then higher than the oxygen producing rate done by the plants.

well that's my theory.  :Smile:

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