Reply With QuoteHow are your horned nerite snails doing? I can't get any survive in a co2 enriched tank... They are doing very well in my 1ft low tech though.
Pearling in a tank depends on the amount of light and also the amount of plant mass that is actively photosynthesizing.Originally Posted by dwong
When there is less plant mass, even if they are photosynthesizing and growing well, they don't produce as much oxygen as compared to a tank with high plant mass, hence the oxygen saturation develops slower, so the pearling effect may not be as noticeable or occurs only much later in the photo period.
I've noticed this effect in my planted tanks, during the first few weeks when the plants are sparse there is usually very little pearling, but once the plants establish over time and grow more densely, they will start to pearl very actively almost immediately after the lights are on... even when the lights, Co2 and fert dosing are still the same.
Its possible to induce pearling in a new tank with less plant mass by just increasing the amount of light they get, that will enable the individual plants to increase their rate of photosynthesis and achieve oxygen saturation in the water faster and hence you can see pearling sooner... BUT, with more light blasting on a still relatively low plant mass, it also increases the chances and speed for algae to grow and get out of control.
I've experienced algae overrun many times over due to too much light... became quite an expert at constant total tank tear-down and re-scape, at one point i just kept buckets and siphon hoses permanently around the tanks since i was re-doing them so often.
I'm not saying that its impossible to control, but when increasing light to accelerate plant growth, you'll definitely have to monitor the tank much more closely to maintain the balance.
How are your horned nerite snails doing? I can't get any survive in a co2 enriched tank... They are doing very well in my 1ft low tech though.
Yeah, I can imagine the work! I think I'll hold on a bit, maybe another two weeks and observe how it goes. Perhaps in the meantime I can add just a bit more CO2... itchy finger syndrome!Pearling in a tank depends on the amount of light and also the amount of plant mass that is actively photosynthesizing.
When there is less plant mass, even if they are photosynthesizing and growing well, they don't produce as much oxygen as compared to a tank with high plant mass, hence the oxygen saturation develops slower, so the pearling effect may not be as noticeable or occurs only much later in the photo period.
I've noticed this effect in my planted tanks, during the first few weeks when the plants are sparse there is usually very little pearling, but once the plants establish over time and grow more densely, they will start to pearl very actively almost immediately after the lights are on... even when the lights, Co2 and fert dosing are still the same.
Its possible to induce pearling in a new tank with less plant mass by just increasing the amount of light they get, that will enable the individual plants to increase their rate of photosynthesis and achieve oxygen saturation in the water faster and hence you can see pearling sooner... BUT, with more light blasting on a still relatively low plant mass, it also increases the chances and speed for algae to grow and get out of control.
I've experienced algae overrun many times over due to too much light... became quite an expert at constant total tank tear-down and re-scape, at one point i just kept buckets and siphon hoses permanently around the tanks since i was re-doing them so often.
I'm not saying that its impossible to control, but when increasing light to accelerate plant growth, you'll definitely have to monitor the tank much more closely to maintain the balance.
I guess with all the nice posts on pearling, somehow for beginners like me, we like to see it as a sign that all is good, and when we don't see pearling, we start worrying. Ironically, back when I had clumps of hair algae, I did see some pearling from the algae!
So far so good, keeping my fingers crossed, it's only been a week but the snails are actively crawling around the aquarium. I always make it a point to do a headcount cos I have very young kids at home. ;p
I actually have another non-CO2 tank, about 13l, with a single horned nerite snail there too. Interestingly, the two tank parameters are quite different. My 2ft has ph6.0, the 13l is about 7.5-8.0. Before introducing into both tanks, I drip acclimated the snails for about an hour. Not sure if it helps, but I also made sure to select only those active snails from C328 (all my snails were from there).
Argh, another cardinal just kamikazed out of the tank today. Not sure why too, tank parameters are ok (CO2 green, no ammonia, low nitrates, temp 26-27). Now left with 8 cardinals. They seem to be ok, no signs of distress or gasping.
Has anyone kept cardinals with CPD (Galaxy Rasboras/Danio Margaritus) before? I think I could either get a few more cardinals to 12 to make it a single species tank, or I could introduce a small group of CPDs, maybe 6.
CPDs are nice. However, I've stopped keeping them in any of my planted tanks as they hide most of the time.
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For CPDs to be comfortable, your tank needs to be heavily planted & certain parts of your tank need to be shaded. You have to have quite a number of them, as they're really shy. The males are rather aggressive to each other if the numbers are too little. I had a few jump out of my tank because they were chased around. Now I have four in my 48cm tank, & they're really active. Provide broken line of sights, so the alpha male won't make the rest jump out of the tank. Good luck!
The nerite snails will do better in the higher pH tank... the ones in your lower pH tank would tend to have their shells eroding over time as the acidic water leaches calcium from them, i noticed the shells on my horned nerites tend to look pale and pitted in low pH Co2 injected tank compared to the nice shiny bright shells on those in the higher pH low-tech tank.
What some people do is regularly shift the snails between the 2 tanks, so that the snails can "repair" their shells in the higher pH tank for a while before being shifted back, kinda like a shell rejuvenation program for the snails.
Haha sounds good! How often do you shift your nerites? I'm just wondering though if the changes in pH would be detrimental in the long run?
Week 5 update:
Week 5.jpg
The stem plants had start to fill up all the way to the top and was blocking out the light in that area, so I undertook a massive trimming of my plants. After triming, was a bit alarmed that the remaining bottom halves didn't look so good, many yellowing or blackened leaves, but I read that it's normal for the plants to bounce back so keeping my fingers crossed. Also noticed that my rotala green tends to grow a bit haphazard, they don't all go up vertically like in GC's showtanks, but sometimes tend to zig zag a bit.
I also added 4x ember tetras from my low tech tank (now all shrimp) to my 2ft, interesting behaviour is that the embers do shoal with the cardinals, but they still form a sub-shoal within the shoal keeping together most of the time.
I also noticed this a few days ago:
eggs.jpg
Looks like eggs of some sort, but can't seem to figure out which. I have juvenile cardinals, RCS, Malayan shrimps, horned nerite snails and otos in the tank, but these don't seem to match. There a few clusters of these eggs on the japonica too, but they disappeared the day after. The only possibility I can think of is that the eggs are from some of the snail pests that hitched a ride in my plants.
I shift them around once in a while, depending on which tank has green spot algae for them to munch on.
What i usually do is a short drip acclimation for the snails before i add them to a tank, they seem to adapt quite well... i guess since nerites are tidal snails, they are probably adapted to crawl around to different ponds and streams which may have different water parameters.
For stem plants, its common for the old bottom sections to deteriorate over time due to the top section blocking light from them... they why in most aquascapes you'll see the bottom "unsightly" parts hidden by a screen of mid-ground plants.
The method to maintain them is to cut the healthy tops off, remove the bottom section, then replant the healthy tops, that will ensure the stems continue healthy growth.
I've also experienced that too... seems the "sp. green" variety tends to grow horizontally at certain points, so it needs to be trimmed more regularly to maintain its shape.
Yeah, those jelly-like clusters of eggs are pond snail eggs, i find them all the time amongst the plants from LFS and farms.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 10th Jan 2014 at 23:17.
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