Co2, Aeration, Oh My!

[RovingGinger]

Hi all, I have planted tanks and mostly sponge filters and extra bubblers in most of them. I do not run co2 and I have very hard, high PH (8+) well water.

I recently picked up this book: Sunken Gardens: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planting Freshwater Aquariums and it made it sound like you can't have a sponge filter and plants that grow. This is observably false, but now I am questioning the "more bubbles!" approach I've taken (guppies like the bubbles). At the same time I'm pretty sure I've seen minor pearling in some of my tanks (probably from algae but let's not get too picky).

What're the balancing factors to keep in mind with this stuff? 

 

 

[Daniel]

In my experience pearling come from high light input and indicates maximum photosynthesising. You want pearling, crank up the light, but you are likely to crank up the algae too. Maybe pearling shouldn't be the goal, as much as the goal should be adequate lighting. I suspect 'more bubbles' doesn't affect this one way or another.

My aquariums like bubbles. The thing I think I will miss the most in my 1930s historically accurate planted aquarium is not having an airstone. It's probably just the water movement the airstone brings, but airstones are magical.

I did CO₂ at first but ultimately decided it was gilding the lily, as light and nutrients are the principle factors in healthy plants. Pretty much the same a terrestrial garden, good light, proper fertilization, and the CO₂ is in the air for free. At least in an aquarium water is usually plentiful. Plants really have to be growning at a super intense rate for CO₂ to be the limiting factor. If I were running an indoor greenhouse with a high dollar cash crop, I would do CO₂ in a heart beat. If wanted to get a fun new tech gadget that makes my aquarium hobby just that much more fun, I would do CO₂ in a heart beat.

If I wanted one less thing to worry about I would give the CO₂ a pass and pick plants that like my water, and give those plants adequate light and proper nutrition.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Daniel
*note that I completely dodge the issue of what 'adequate' and 'proper' are when it comes to light and nutrition

[Byte]

If I were to make an educated guess, I would think the book is trying to say that an air stone would remove CO₂ from the tank, thus taking it away from the plants.

I think @Daniel's explanation about CO₂ hits the nail on the head in terms of lighting and nutrients being the main focus 🙂 

[RovingGinger]

6 hours ago, Byte said:

If I were to make an educated guess, I would think the book is trying to say that an air stone would remove CO₂ from the tank, thus taking it away from the plants.

I think @Daniel's explanation about CO₂ hits the nail on the head in terms of lighting and nutrients being the main focus 🙂 

“The problem with air-driven filters is that they drive off needed CO2 in the tank.” basically yes, sounded like you were taking a tank with no co2 injection and then making it retain even less naturally.

It also goes into the relationship between co2 and ph, which since I already have high ph, lack of co2 making it rise further seems bad.

From houseplant experiment, most of the times what a book tells you to do optimally is not at all necessary to be a perfectly happy plant owner with lots of props. So I assume it is the same here and I am not accidentally stunting all my plants and slowly killing all the fish, and it sounds like that is right. 
 

I am glad to see so many people have tons of plants and no co2. 
 

Edit: also this from the book made me concerned -

“If you choose to try a tank without supplemental CO2, make sure that you choose a filtration system that does not unnecessarily agitate the water surface. This means no air-driven filters can be used...”

Edited July 31, 2020 by RovingGinger
Found more context