Reverse Respiration

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/6/2022 at 6:42 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Have you tried reducing your light duration?

I checked nitrates, 0 again. so with the CO2 the plants are destroying the waste in the tank. 

The lighting started at 55% on the 24" light. Then over time I got it up to 75% on that same light while reducing algae issues.  I tried to up this to 85-95% for the sake of getting the PAR to the substrate level and this backfired.  Everything bloomed algae while the plants on the substrate didn't get any or enough par.

Then I moved to the 36" light because I was having those issues.  The light started at 85% and I just dropped it from 50% down to 40% power with the CO2 added.  My hope is to let things progress, let the moss, stems, anubias take off, and then the algae backs off.  I reached a point where the algae backed off and grew tufts on the wood. Annoying, but tolerable.  those tufts are difficult for the shrimp to eat and now are about 50% covering the wood itself.  Second to this, while lowering the light more and more and more, tightening the lighting window, the algae is taking off again.  I "pulled back" some settings to reduce the lighting window (10 hours down to 8 ) and then I reduced the intensity down as mentioned above. 

We'll see how things progress, but this algae sucks.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Might want to try a nerite snail @nabokovfan87 if the RR isn’t killing the stuff.  They love algae and biofilm. They are not livebearers and they do not result in many snails. Also, if you get a female and it lays eggs, the eggs cannot hatch. They can only hatch if the water is brackish.

Keep trying on the RR in the meantime.

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/6/2022 at 7:20 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Might want to try a nerite snail @nabokovfan87 if the RR isn’t killing the stuff.  They love algae and biofilm. They are not livebearers and they do not result in many snails. Also, if you get a female and it lays eggs, the eggs cannot hatch. They can only hatch if the water is brackish.

oh apparently I've got snails in the tank too. LOL.

Some sort of pest snail, bladder type, that I have found 3 of so far.  I approve of nerites, but I will have to test to verify it's not going to lay nerite eggs on the wood!  I'd literally have 30+ amanos in there if need be to get rid of this stuff.  I'll get some seltzer and fill a tub and dunk everything.  It'll get there.  For something like hardscape I might even have to go longer than 12 hours, but based on what I'm seeing right now I am screwing up the technique somehow.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/6/2022 at 11:40 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

oh apparently I've got snails in the tank too. LOL.

Some sort of pest snail, bladder type, that I have found 3 of so far.  I approve of nerites, but I will have to test to verify it's not going to lay nerite eggs on the wood!  I'd literally have 30+ amanos in there if need be to get rid of this stuff.  I'll get some seltzer and fill a tub and dunk everything.  It'll get there.  For something like hardscape I might even have to go longer than 12 hours, but based on what I'm seeing right now I am screwing up the technique somehow.

Fill the tub with plants decor etc. pour freshly opened seltzer over it. Put it in a dark room for 12 hours. Make certain plants are weighted down. I’ve even forgotten and done 18 hours. More delicate plants may not like that though. 
You had several variables going that negate the affectiveness, some Anubis floated up, not fresh opened seltzer etc. 

Let us know how your second go works. 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/6/2022 at 11:40 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

but based on what I'm seeing right now I am screwing up the technique somehow

Keep it in the dark, weigh the stuff down so it is fully submerged, and don’t put a lid on the container. I usually do 16 hours but that’s because that’s what works with my schedule.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[dasaltemelosguy]

Hi @nabokovfan87, we recently ran into a couple of RR resistant algae. We had found that an RR resistant alga will succumb with repeated treatments. You can safely treat plants 3X consecutively, or longer if the cycles are maintained.

For example, after the initial RR treatment, if the plants were soaked in seltzer for 12 hours in light followed by 12 hours in darkness in plain water, this cycle can be maintained without harming the plants for many days (we've tested this for as long as 8 days so far).

However, each RR treatment denatures the algae still more but by ending the seltzer cycle in 12 hours followed by 12 hours of plain water, it’s not enough time for plant damage as the vascular system is too slow to deliver it to the cells, especially in the dark.

This is why it’s safer to alternate the seltzer/water cycles to mirror the plants natural respiration rather than keeping it in continuously in seltzer for more than 12 hours as @Guppysnail had cautioned against with regards to 18-hour soaks.

Each successive treatment is attritional towards the algae immediately, but 4+ days are required for plant tissue to be damaged.

The most resistant algae we found was marimos. However even marimos were fatally damaged after 4 RR treatments over 4 days.

There is a much faster and more potent version of RR however.

The original concept involves a post-12 hours in seltzer, aerated water bath for at least 30 minutes.

This is to ensure you get two benefits;

• One is to eliminate any anaerobic bacteria although that’s unlikely to exist.
• The other is to effect a drastic pH Shift.

The pH shift process is how nutrients are removed from algae for health drinks. For pH shifting to work, the larger the pH swing, the more effective.

It’s impossible to say what the pH (and pressure) of a partially opened bottle would be unfortunately. If it is fresh and the 2^nd bath is just plain water, circa pH=8, the pH swing goes from seltzer’s 3 to 8 which is fairly extreme.

However, if you replace the 2^nd bath with alkaline water, the pH shifting is as powerful as the drink manufacturers employ and that virtually empties the algae cells of their contents.

This changes the shift from 3-8 to 3-10, or 100X the potency of using plain water as bath 2.

This stuff (or countless others) works well:

Alkaline Water Drink

We found this dramatic increase in effectiveness can also inflict some plant damage. 12 hours in the alkaline water literally killed the plants but 30 minutes to an hour did not.

It does however inflict about the same amount of damage as 3 days of soaking in alum when examined under a microscope.

I’m speculating but I imagine 2-3 RR treatments will kill the algae on the plants or a single RR treatment followed by a 30m alkaline water bath may be enough.

As for wood and rocks, the 12/12, seltzer/alkaline water is quite an algicide. I can’t be certain, but I don’t think any form of algae would survive 12/12 with alkaline water as bath 2.

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/7/2022 at 2:53 AM, Guppysnail said:

Fill the tub with plants decor etc. pour freshly opened seltzer over it. Put it in a dark room for 12 hours. Make certain plants are weighted down. I’ve even forgotten and done 18 hours. More delicate plants may not like that though. 
You had several variables going that negate the affectiveness, some Anubis floated up, not fresh opened seltzer etc. 

Correct.  On the first batch, plants only, everything was correct.

On 8/7/2022 at 8:46 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

The original concept involves a post-12 hours in seltzer, aerated water bath for at least 30 minutes.

This is what I have been doing.  It's easy for me to do this and let the plants sit for however long after the RR treatment.

On 8/7/2022 at 8:46 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

However, if you replace the 2^nd bath with alkaline water, the pH shifting is as powerful as the drink manufacturers employ and that virtually empties the algae cells of their contents.

This changes the shift from 3-8 to 3-10, or 100X the potency of using plain water as bath 2.

This stuff (or countless others) works well:

Alkaline Water Drink

We found this dramatic increase in effectiveness can also inflict some plant damage. 12 hours in the alkaline water literally killed the plants but 30 minutes to an hour did not.

It does however inflict about the same amount of damage as 3 days of soaking in alum when examined under a microscope.

I’m speculating but I imagine 2-3 RR treatments will kill the algae on the plants or a single RR treatment followed by a 30m alkaline water bath may be enough.

As for wood and rocks, the 12/12, seltzer/alkaline water is quite an algicide. I can’t be certain, but I don’t think any form of algae would survive 12/12 with alkaline water as bath 2.

Does anyone have a bottle of this and can check PH, KH, GH, etc?

[Guppysnail]

On 8/7/2022 at 12:21 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Correct.  On the first batch, plants only, everything was correct.

This is what I have been doing.  It's easy for me to do this and let the plants sit for however long after the RR treatment.

Does anyone have a bottle of this and can check PH, KH, GH, etc?

We already checked alkaline water @dasaltemelosguygave you the info already in his reply. Kh/gh have zero bearing. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/7/2022 at 9:39 AM, Guppysnail said:

We already checked alkaline water @dasaltemelosguygave you the info already in his reply. Kh/gh have zero bearing. 

I see it now.  8-10 it looks like

[Guppysnail]

On 8/7/2022 at 1:34 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I see it now.  8-10 it looks like

I sent you a message with some thoughts on where your issues with this algae may be originating from. I hope it helps. 

[Its Hutch]

I used the RR method for the plants I purchased at Aquashella. The plants looked great and on visual inspection appeared clean but after the seltzer water I found some foreign bodies. Here's a gif of the plants in the oxygenated water.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/8/2022 at 2:56 PM, Its Hutch said:

I used the RR method for the plants I purchased at Aquashella. The plants looked great and on visual inspection appeared clean but after the seltzer water I found some foreign bodies. Here's a gif of the plants in the oxygenated water.

ORD 😍. I’m glad RR was available so those foreign bodies did not end up in your tanks. 

[Power74]

On 8/8/2022 at 8:56 PM, Its Hutch said:

used the RR method for the plants I purchased at Aquashella. The plants looked great and on visual inspection appeared clean but after the seltzer water I found some foreign bodies. Here's a gif of the plants in the

Hello. The result of your work is super beautiful. I am new to the forum and I work in the medical sector. I would like to know more about the RR method you used and what it really consists of if you don't mind.  I recently started to be interested in plants and the aquatic world, which is why I joined this forum.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Power74

[Guppysnail]

On 8/13/2022 at 3:20 PM, Power74 said:

Hello. The result of your work is super beautiful. I am new to the forum and I work in the medical sector. I would like to know more about the RR method you used and what it really consists of if you don't mind.  I recently started to be interested in plants and the aquatic world, which is why I joined this forum.

We added a short version at the beginning of the first openings post on page one of this thread. It consists of seltzer water.  That’s it. If you are interested in the deeper science behind it you can read the full article where we included microscope images and the scientific details also opening post on this thread. Welcome to the forum. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/5/2022 at 2:54 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Doing some tank maintenance and well, arm was already wet. Might as well pull the diatom plants out for some RR. Candidates are red ludwigia (which is green because I’m too cheap to buy iron) and Java moss. Updates to follow.

 

 

I’m particularly interested to see how the Java moss turns out. That’s been coated for too long.

Since I was asked for another update. Ludwigia doesn’t look that great. 
 

 

[Guppysnail]

On 8/13/2022 at 3:57 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Since I was asked for another update. Ludwigia doesn’t look that great. 
 

 

A few of my ludwigia stems did that. The rest did amazing. I had the benefit of a microscope and looked before treatment and the leaves had slow to almost no vascular activity on the ones that turned like yours. That is why the algae targeted those leaves so heavy to begin with. The ones that did great were really active under a microscope before treatment.  
 

The ones of mine that looked like yours actually grew a bunch of new shoots entirely from the stem to create whole new stems a few weeks after treatment. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

The really green bit on top is new.

[nabokovfan87]

Plants up to 1:05 are untreated. Everything after that (wood and rock) is treated on that "2nd treatment".

Interesting stuff.
 

Took me a few days to get CO2 dialed in, seeing some changes to the algae and the stuff on the rocks is staying smaller than others.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/13/2022 at 8:50 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Plants up to 1:05 are untreated. Everything after that (wood and rock) is treated on that "2nd treatment".

Interesting stuff.
 

Took me a few days to get CO2 dialed in, seeing some changes to the algae and the stuff on the rocks is staying smaller than others.

Boy that stuff is stubborn, eh?  What’s the white stuff at 1:45? Is that algae also? Treated algae? Looks almost like lichens you’d see outside on a tree.
 

Cute pudgy shrimp at 1:30. 😍

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/14/2022 at 3:00 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Boy that stuff is stubborn, eh?  What’s the white stuff at 1:45? Is that algae also? Treated algae? Looks almost like lichens you’d see outside on a tree.

Yeah. It's this red algae aka BBA / Staghorn stuff.  I was talking with OnlyGenus about it and I'm *pretty sure* it's literally in the water into the house at this point.  Went from normal water to septic and I'm sure this stuff is everywhere.

What you're seeing is kind of hard because the glass bending the view a bit.  The seiryu is grey and white, there is a crevice and in that crevice you're seeing the brown diatom, then you have the black staghorn stuff, but it's short, on either end of that brown diatom algae.  That white patch in the middle or light brown is just the brown diatoms.
 

On 8/14/2022 at 3:00 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Cute pudgy shrimp at 1:30. 😍

LOL,  I'll let her know you said hey hey.    There was one today, just swimming around trying to find a spot. would stop for 1 second, taste the algae, "nope" then fly around to another.  Amanos are so picky sometimes.  I actually saw one of the black corys grazing on the brown diatoms on the Seiryu this morning.  It explains why they don't eat food much, they got enough 24/7! 😂

Then under the center of the tank in the flow, the big female cory, the big male, and their little one hanging out.  The little one wanted to be in the middle, Pops wasn't having it so he moved, then the little one chased him around.  LOL.  They figured it out, but that's my morning. 

 

On 8/13/2022 at 1:20 PM, Guppysnail said:

The ones of mine that looked like yours actually grew a bunch of new shoots entirely from the stem to create whole new stems a few weeks after treatment. 

Very interesting.  I have some doing this since I added CO2.  Bacopa.  You might see similar behavior from those ones as well.  These were cuttings, stems are having issues and the leaves are wilting away and covered now.  The algae went from black to brown with CO2, but the actual stems themselves, where the leaves meet the stalk I'm seeing new plants pop up all over. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Odd Duck]

On 8/13/2022 at 6:50 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Plants up to 1:05 are untreated. Everything after that (wood and rock) is treated on that "2nd treatment".

Interesting stuff.
 

Took me a few days to get CO2 dialed in, seeing some changes to the algae and the stuff on the rocks is staying smaller than others.

Looks like things could maybe benefit from a second treatment.  I’d give it a few more days and see how things go (as long as they don’t look like they’re regrowing anything).  It’s getting close to a week since you treated, right?

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/14/2022 at 2:43 PM, Odd Duck said:

It’s getting close to a week since you treated, right?

Yes, correct.  The good sign is that other stuff is the tank is dying off.  Not everywhere.  I would need to do a massive treatment, try to clean every surface of the tank to eradicate it. 

Based on the conversation I had with OnlyGenus and the things I've been seeing.  The waves and the cycle of treatments with this tank....

I need to make sure the spores themselves, in the water and that hide on every surface, equipment, hardscape, plants, substrate, etc.  If something is left untreated in some capacity, then I will have a bloom at some slight imbalance and then things take off again.  The cycle I have been seeing and makes sense with the above added detail is that I clean everything, do well, manual removal and things die back.  I add new plants, they take hold, then "something happens" and then things fall off and the algae blooms.  I see new growth, then I see that get covered by the algae.  Then I go back to cleaning, new plants, etc.

The moss is fighting this stuff off, I am having very "clean" water, and seeing the plants do the work this time.  So that's a good step.  I will end up treating the wood, rocks, plants, and do one more big clean and see how it goes.  I will try to manually remove it from the bark of the wood to avoid the big bloom and then treat it with RR after that point. 

[Guppysnail]

@nabokovfan87 the rocks and wood I would douse and scrub with h2o2 to remove all traces so they do not release nutrients from dead algae. They also may be introducing to much water into the seltzer. BBA spores can also contaminate filters. 

[Odd Duck]

On 8/14/2022 at 4:07 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Yes, correct.  The good sign is that other stuff is the tank is dying off.  Not everywhere.  I would need to do a massive treatment, try to clean every surface of the tank to eradicate it. 

Based on the conversation I had with OnlyGenus and the things I've been seeing.  The waves and the cycle of treatments with this tank....

I need to make sure the spores themselves, in the water and that hide on every surface, equipment, hardscape, plants, substrate, etc.  If something is left untreated in some capacity, then I will have a bloom at some slight imbalance and then things take off again.  The cycle I have been seeing and makes sense with the above added detail is that I clean everything, do well, manual removal and things die back.  I add new plants, they take hold, then "something happens" and then things fall off and the algae blooms.  I see new growth, then I see that get covered by the algae.  Then I go back to cleaning, new plants, etc.

The moss is fighting this stuff off, I am having very "clean" water, and seeing the plants do the work this time.  So that's a good step.  I will end up treating the wood, rocks, plants, and do one more big clean and see how it goes.  I will try to manually remove it from the bark of the wood to avoid the big bloom and then treat it with RR after that point. 

That sounds like a good plan. I need an injection of ambition to get caught up on all my maintenance and planned treatments, not to mention rearranging practically the whole house to do my Offish.  🤷🏻‍♀️ 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/14/2022 at 3:12 PM, Guppysnail said:

They also may be introducing to much water into the seltzer. BBA spores can also contaminate filters. 

oh it definitely has, 100%.  I've torn it down and sprayed equipment and everything with the H202, but I'm not great at treatment with that.  I have notes from OG on how to do it and I'll research some more.

It'll get there.  It's such a battle with this stuff and it seems to be more common these days so it's some pretty volatile stuff.