Perling effect

[Cmlee]

Has anyone experience Perling effect from plants by dosing excel ?

[Urban Aquaria]

If lights and nutrients are optimal and the plants are growing well, its possible that the dosing of Excel can help to boost the plant photosynthesis rate to a point that they could start pearling (usually its in situations whereby the tank has a high density of fast growing plants, more plants photosynthesizing = more oxygen being produced = the sooner the water achieves oxygen saturation)... though the chances of that happening tend to be alot lower than compared to tanks that use pressurized Co2 injection.

[Cmlee]

I have water sprites in tank but don't see Perling. Dosing normal excel portion , maybe I need to dose more at the risk of my live stocks?

[Urban Aquaria]

I have water sprites in tank but don't see Perling. Dosing normal excel portion , maybe I need to dose more at the risk of my live stocks?

I guess you could try and see, slowly increase the Excel dosage and monitor the plants reaction. Getting plants to increase their photosynthesis rate requires a combination of ample light, nutrients and carbon... any factor that is insufficient would limit the photosynthesis rate. So if you dose more Excel to increase carbon availability, lights and nutrients may also need to be increased to match it. Its all a matter of adjusting the combinations to encourage the higher photosynthesis rate.

Note that the overall density and mass of plants also matters, a small bunch of fast growing plants would take a long time to produce enough oxygen to saturate the tank (even if light, nutrients and carbon are plentiful)... on the other-hand, a tank full of fast growing plants (even inch of substrate is covered in plants from bottom to top) would take a much shorter time to produce oxygen to achieve saturation levels and start pearling.

The thing with Excel is that although it is an alternative source of carbon and does help to boost plant growth, its effectiveness as a carbon source is still not as good as Co2 injection, so the overall potential gains tend to be lower. In order to increase carbon availability further using Excel, you'll need to increase the dosage, which can accumulate to levels dangerous for livestock, and the excessive amount of Excel chemicals can also end up burning and melting the plants too (which ends up defeating the whole purpose of it). So its probably a more difficult and risky way to get "pearling" effect just by using Excel.

Btw, some plants can produce more oxygen much faster than other plants, like in the case of Riccia fluitans, its a liverwort plant that aquascapers like to tie to rocks and mesh and use as a carpet plant. Even with no Excel dosing and no Co2 injection, riccia can still grow surprisingly fast and can pearl quite easily as long as it gets ample strong light. So if you want to get a chance to see pearling effects in a low-tech tank, maybe look at getting some riccia to try out.

Some info for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccia_fluitans

[PKB]

Riccia and Excel doesn’t work well together if I am not wrong. Riccia pearl easily but Excel seems to kill Riccia.

[Urban Aquaria]

Yeah, PKB brought up a good point... if you add riccia your tank, have to be careful not to overdose Excel too much, as riccia tends to be more sensitive to those chemicals.

[PKB]

I have water sprites in tank but don't see Perling. Dosing normal excel portion , maybe I need to dose more at the risk of my live stocks?

What lightings are you using?

[Cmlee]

I tried ricca once it never grow much and scatters all around my tank , very messy

[Urban Aquaria]

I tried ricca once it never grow much and scatters all around my tank , very messy

Yeah, you need to tie it down securely on objects and trim the loose bits regularly to maintain even growth.

Riccia does require ample light to grow well, so if you find that it grows slowly, then it probably means your light intensity is too low (which in turn also restricts the growth rate and photosynthesis of the other plants too).