sciencefiction
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- 26 Feb 2013
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Plants can pearl when they are unhealthy and can also pearl in a low tech tank too. So not much to do with high CO2 levels.
I thought plants pearl when the tank reaches O2 saturation point but I could be wrong. Either way it's got to do with O2 levels in my opinion.
If it's a plant only tank, I wouldn't worry about surface movement that much. But in a fish tank the consumption of O2 is higher and as already mentioned, O2 and CO2 levels are independent from each other. Outgassing some CO2 via surface movement will compensate for bringing in some O2 instead. Fish gasp at the surface when CO2 is too high for the particular species of fish. Low O2 levels will more than likely cause unexplained fish deaths and disease outbreaks, and also anaerobic substrates, resulting in poor plant health.
So in my opinion, one should be concerned about O2 as much as CO2 and get their surface moving on the cost of losing some of the injected CO2.
I thought plants pearl when the tank reaches O2 saturation point but I could be wrong. Either way it's got to do with O2 levels in my opinion.
If it's a plant only tank, I wouldn't worry about surface movement that much. But in a fish tank the consumption of O2 is higher and as already mentioned, O2 and CO2 levels are independent from each other. Outgassing some CO2 via surface movement will compensate for bringing in some O2 instead. Fish gasp at the surface when CO2 is too high for the particular species of fish. Low O2 levels will more than likely cause unexplained fish deaths and disease outbreaks, and also anaerobic substrates, resulting in poor plant health.
So in my opinion, one should be concerned about O2 as much as CO2 and get their surface moving on the cost of losing some of the injected CO2.
