Reverse Respiration

[Guppysnail]

On 4/6/2023 at 4:17 PM, jwcarlson said:

want to be clear that I'm not complaining or anything.  I typically do not do anything like this if I am not willing to lose it.

I absolutely understand. If I thought you were complaining I would not have taken the time to take photos. 🤗

 

On 4/6/2023 at 4:17 PM, jwcarlson said:

Those are all 12 hour soaks?

Yes and no. For testing RR YES to all. For @TeeJay hornwort YES because he has devils spawn ramshorns I’m phobic of. For new to me plants yes again phobic of ramshorns eggs. 
For plants being moved from QT OR the tank I redid that had some fin issues no. Those were 3-5 hours just to kill bacteria. 

Plants that are new to me shipped I do allow them to recover from shipping stress for a few days on my windowsill in water with some fertilizer. 
 

We obviously had no way of testing every algae that there is. We found out about the marimo family after we posted this article. Your tap water ph may play a part as well. I have 7.8-8.2 for the shift after the 3 of seltzer. I believe @dasaltemelosguy has 8+ also. 

[Guppysnail]

On 4/6/2023 at 4:23 PM, jwcarlson said:

Apisto tanks are 77 and discus tank is 85, but to be clear anything I've put in my discus tank at 85 has been something I got from another discus keeper who also keeps their fish at similar temps (perhaps a couple degrees cooler, though). 

This might be. My tanks are all 74-75 other than my Apisto and ram tank. Some of the crypt and the Styron are in both though. 
 

However when we first began looking at methods ice water shifted to tank water temps was tested. It destroyed every plant I tested on like melted to mush in days. My seltzer is room temp 70 and my tanks are 75. The ones that went into the warmer Apisto and ram tank just by timing were shifted to aerated room temp tap simply because I was to tired to plant them 🤣

So you issues may indeed be be a temp thing. Try soaking in water same temp as seltzer (let tank water cool with plant in)first then making the seltzer bath and aerated water bath the same temp and giving the plants a day or so to recover and slowly acclimate them to higher temps just like fish. Maybe float to temp in a bag???  
 

All this is guessing based on the volume of plants i disintegrated try the ice water to kill algae and pests. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

@jwcarlson gorgeous Apisto ❤️

[jwcarlson]

Interesting that cold to warm can cause melting like that.  To be honest, we keep the house pretty cool in the winter.  It's probably about 60 in the basement.  Only 64ish in the house proper.  It might be a whole lot lining up to shock them.  So I think I'll take a more measured approach when re-introducing next time.  I'd only moderately considered temperature to be any sort of possible issue.  I suppose it makes perfect sense, just something I hadn't really been considering.

 

Thanks for brainstorming with me! 😄  Now I've got to pick some plants to RR this weekend!  I bet they're already quaking in their boots. haha

[Guppysnail]

@jwcarlson if you are not worried about killing algae or possible snail eggs try less time. @dasaltemelosguy did quite a few videos where most pests perish in a minute or a few minutes. At 3 hours I believe  snail ‘embryos were bleached but still moving. I did a lot of testing at the 5 hour mark to determine what the shortest time foe BBA was and 5 hours was that one’s magic number for me. Quite a few of those plants them lived on my windowsill for a week or two without me seeing bladder snails even though I knew there were egg sacs in the plants. I did not however specifically scope any egg sacs to determine if they actually perished. I tested very little with pest removal that was his job  because most of the pests were my pets 🤣

12 hours conquered everything algae etc we tested on. Plus it’s convenient to throw them in before relaxing in the evening then waking up to see how it worked. 
 

If you are worried about snails maybe do 5 hours and then let the plants live for 2 weeks on a windowsill to make certain all the egg sacs perished.  In that time you can easily see the snails. Those buggers grow quick.

9 hours was the kill mark for the green hair algae in my tanks whatever species it was  
 

Just more brainstorming for you. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Guppysnail

[jwcarlson]

Ok, did for the second time in two weeks an anubias, a java fern cluster, and a chunk of highly algae'd java moss.  Also hornwort and some PSO trimmings.  And guppy grass. 

Let it soak about 9-10 hours. 

Warmed it up more slowly than I have previously. 

Can you tell which algae had taken a second treatment in 7 days?  And the moss is next to some that was treated last week but not this week. 

Now shrimp need to do their thing.  Guppy grass looks a little rough.  Hornwort looks OK so far, but it usually takes a day or two to melt.  

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by jwcarlson

[Cory]

On 4/6/2023 at 1:43 PM, Guppysnail said:

Thank you but I must decline. I’m computer illiterate and really detest lists and reports as well as being incredibly bad at it. Basically I would rather be bludgeoned and tortured. 

Once the patent became pending we did release the website that puts everything into a more user friendly format. Many folks asked for a more user friendly format so it just needed to be done.  

We didn’t post a link because we were not sure about the guidelines of no self promotion and if it was a conflict but it’s not different than posting a link to an information blog or a YouTube video I suppose because that’s all it is. It just happens to be forum members that created it.  
 

We are not selling anything it’s just information so maybe it is ok to post?
 

 https://reverserespiration.com/

 

@Streetwise if this is a conflict please let me know and I will edit the post and remove the link  I just don’t want to have such a useful thread shut down if I made a mistake by posting the website  Thank you 🤗

 

 

I have moved this thread to the community resource forum. I have also added the link to the website on the first post. With the website, I was able to digest the info in a timely manner and I agree this should work well as proven by the results in this thread.

As long as the website stays advertising free, I have no problem linking out to it.

[Guppysnail]

Thank you @Cory  if it ever hosts ads we will tell you ahead of time. 

[jwcarlson]

On 4/8/2023 at 7:05 PM, jwcarlson said:

Ok, did for the second time in two weeks an anubias, a java fern cluster, and a chunk of highly algae'd java moss.  Also hornwort and some PSO trimmings.  And guppy grass. 

Let it soak about 9-10 hours. 

Warmed it up more slowly than I have previously. 

Can you tell which algae had taken a second treatment in 7 days?  And the moss is next to some that was treated last week but not this week. 

Now shrimp need to do their thing.  Guppy grass looks a little rough.  Hornwort looks OK so far, but it usually takes a day or two to melt.  

 

I haven't taken updated pictures, but the bristlenose and shrimp have done a great job cleaning up the algae and the moss actually looks like moss as opposed to algae with a moss substrate. 😄  

I will RR the rest of the moss now that I've had success.  Will also do the rest of the algae covered stuff (some java ferns and a couple anubias) at the same time since it went well.  Hornwort is also alive and did not melt.  It did take some damage, but it grows quickly enough that it's not a big deal.  I actually might have treated that twice, I cannot recall for sure.  The guppy grass and PSO did not like the RR, but there is no reason for me to salvage guppy grass having two ten gallons nearly full of it.  And PSO I've not trimmed off most of the algae'd bits and what's left is looking OK.  I still struggle with PSO.  It will grow like a total and complete weed and then just stop and die.  Doesn't matter how many root tabs I cram under it or how much easy green I squirt in the tank.  Perhaps it doesn't like my lower levels of ferts.  It is in Fluval Stratum in most cases, though.  Somewhat disappointing because it's a really cool plant.  Part of my issue, I think, is my refusal to take a tank that I can barely keep nitrates in even without water changes and then pump 40 PPM of easy green into it.  I am making a concerted effort to dose daily to hopefully level out the ferts.

But all that is well outside my RR situation.  I think shortening it up to 9ish hours and not temperature shocking the plants as bad helped a lot!  Thanks to @Guppysnail for those suggestions!

[Guppysnail]

@jwcarlson PSO is weird for me also. I don’t use fertz or root tabs. I have tried PSO many time and it hates me with a vengeance. Being a stubborn old fool I keep trying. I finally have one tank where it is going gang busters. Surprisingly it is one of the tanks that stays medium on my average nitrate scale and medium on my average light scale. The only significant difference is it is a window tank that gets direct sunlight. 🤷‍♀️

Im still trying water sprite and wisteria after a million attempts. It still hates me personally 🤣

[jwcarlson]

My mother-in-law gave me (not exaggerating) and entire grocery bag full of PSO some months ago.  She had just trimmed it before we went to visit and I dug it out of the trash.

So technically she didn't give it to me, but I dumpster dove for it.

Anyway.  I have succeeded in keeping about 33% of that volume still alive.  But overall it's dwindling.  I find that the tips I cut off root and start growing well, but it starts new shoots at the location of the cut.  But they only grow a little bit and then stop.  

I guess my assumption is it's a fertilizer issue.  As long as my MIL can keep donating grocery bags full to me, I should be good to go.  She also has massive amazon swords and mine die if I don't put 8 root tabs under them every two weeks... and even then... they still die.  I've got them in plant substrate and give them root tabs and they still just flat out won't grow. 😄  

I, too, struggle with water sprite.  I currently have one small 2-3" piece that looks pretty good floating around in one tank.  😄  I have removed pothos from tanks where I want to keep plants more reliably.  They remain in the discus tank.  My anubias are dying in there, so I will probably pull most of those out this week and just leave boring driftwood in there instead.  Eventually they're moving to a bare bottom 125, so I'll regroup on planting strategy in that tank.  Likely potting some plants.  The biggest help will be that I won't be doing 90% water changes every day in that tank.  So maybe the nitrates will get a little higher than 0.

Edited April 13, 2023 by jwcarlson

[jwcarlson]

Same RR technique today.  9 hours match temp better (easy since it's warmer in the house now).  I also rinse them in RO before putting the seltzer in. 

Can you tell what went in the bucket today? 🤣

Edited April 15, 2023 by jwcarlson

[Bev C]

@Guppysnail @dasaltemelosguy  Congratulations i saw that you have the website up and going for RR ,,it looks wonderful beautiful job well done ,, wishing you all the best on it hope everyone  finds out about it I will post the link to my state facebook aquarium page and my personal page The RR project is a amazing project for the plants 

Hi everyone  hope you guys are doing well , I need to get some new plants since the cold and  frost gone and it is spring now ,, I have my seltzer water ready  for the new plants orders ,, 

 update on old  plants   it has been a year since my RR soak on plants all is still algae free except for my anubias it was getting black beard on the leaves again so i re-soak it  no more algae but believe me if i have to re-soak  after a yearThwt is fine by me I  rather re-soak  with RR once a year then fight and   clean algae every week ,, I am still Happy Plant owner 

I love the guppy grass in the shrimp tank but need a more guppy grass mine is not dead but not growing fast 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Bev C

[Guppysnail]

@Bev C thank you for the kind words. Feel free to share the website with whoever you choose. We are delighted so many folks have found it helpful. 

[Bev C]

@Guppysnail  the site looks wonderful i just wished I knew more fish people might but write down the address  of the website and give it the fish store next time I go they  have allot business ,,

[Ben Z]

These tips are fantastic! I tried reverse respiration using beer, and in my tests, EVERY BEER outperformed carbonated water! There must be something magical about the chemistry of mixing ethanol, co2 and good old hops. Yum yum

[Guppysnail]

On 5/5/2023 at 11:18 PM, Ben Z said:

These tips are fantastic! I tried reverse respiration using beer, and in my tests, EVERY BEER outperformed carbonated water! There must be something magical about the chemistry of mixing ethanol, co2 and good old hops. Yum yum

Barley is a well known algicide. Folks use barley straw in ponds often. 

[Bev C]

@Ben Z wow beer that is neat  does it  work on snails too along with algae ?

 i mostly do the soak for snail removal  now a days  but i did have to removal algae on some anubias  recently 

i have a questions got a few plants for the season .. both is more delicate then crypts and anubias  and swords for the soak 
I got some more guppy grass  and it has snails  I can not remember how i did it before   do i leave in full 12 hours ,,    

and I also got  Brazilian Pennywort too do i leave for the full 12 hours  the placement of the Pennywort will try to float in the tank but want a few steams planted to 

if i reduce the time would it be 5-6 hours ,, they are new plants just want to rid of the snails and eggs 

 hope all that made sense 

 

[dasaltemelosguy]

Oh no, you don't want to use beer. I did once and this happened to my Oscar:

 

[boylesdowntothis]

i may not know enough about plant physiology but a question does beg for attention here. will the alcohols and sugars in beer affect a delicate plant in any adverse manner? also, what about residue? part of the elegant beauty [and genius] of reverse respiration is it accomplishes all this without any residue. i do recall someone here using diet pepsi so i’d ask the same about that.

[Shadow]

I can tell you one thing is for sure, living in a small country town, finding pure seltzer water is next to impossible. I think I got the only 12 pack in existence. Will let you all know how it goes @Guppysnail. 🙂 

[Guppysnail]

@Shadow I’m in that same boat. I occasionally have to revert to club soda. When I do find seltzer there is only ever 1-2 cases. I always buy ALL of them. The disinfection of plants to keep out any accidental pest introduction is a life saver. 

[Shadow]

On 5/10/2023 at 11:41 AM, Guppysnail said:

@Shadow I’m in that same boat. I occasionally have to revert to club soda. When I do find seltzer there is only ever 1-2 cases. I always buy ALL of them. The disinfection of plants to keep out any accidental pest introduction is a life saver. 

Yea when I am in town next, I will buy whatever I can find but unfortunately here locally its a half case max scenario. Luckily after weighing down with substrate rock bag, it completely covered all this hornwort & water sprite I got from the plant dude. Jeeez tho...hornwort smells like hell. 🤣

[Guppysnail]

@Shadow I raid the ENTIRE silverware drawer. As @Chick-In-Of-TheSeahas pointed out my hubby can’t butter toast or eat hot meals when I get new plants 🤣

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]