This is not science nor research. It is what is termed anecdotal evidence. When I read scientific papers they list the names and institutions of the researchers at the top of the paper. They even give contact information for the lead scientist so they can be contacted. And I have contacted a few over the years. A prefect example would be the toxic shipping bags episode from years back. It was reported in Amazonas to which I subscribed for a few years.
I had started to have a problem with fish dying in bags. We are talking zebra plecos so bags of fish worth many $100s. It turned out that one of the potential ingredients in fish bags and.or the slip agent used so they do not stick together was found to be the cause. This problem was initially seen by sw keepers. One of them had a friend who was an environmental scientist and the organization involved did research on this. The sw keepers recounted the issue with the dying in bags and the scientist and associated decided to investigate, They confirmed the cause.
My fish were dying much more rapidly than the time frame the research felt was needed for the fish to be harmed or killed. So , I was thinking there was a reason that this was the case. Plecos tend to such into the bag in transit. When they do so the tend to scrape the plastic. My thinking was tis activity was accelerating and increasing the rate at which the toxic ingredient was getting into the bag water. So I asked the reasercher in my email if he thought my thinking was accurate. He replied, yes.
I had a friend who had the same problem even before the research above. She had a home based fish business and she shipped out more fish in a week or two regularly than I did in a year. So I contacted her as we both used to get bags from the same source. I asked where she had switched to and that is how I came to buy from Jehmco. I never had a bag issues since.
It was not any reports by fish keepers which figured things out, it was proper research. How many DOAS had arrived over the years prior to the bag issue causing the deaths? These deaths are usually the result of poor quality fish, poor shipping techniques or shipper issues. It was not anecdotal reports of fish dying in tranist alone that found this was not normal and what the real cause was.
I have seen 100s of people make statements about the nitrifying bacteria on this site which are absolutely false. They make these statements and they are accepted as fact. I called a lot of it urban aquarium myths. How many posts have you read that assure readers that bottled bacteria cannot and do not work? Does that make it true.
So her is my point. At one time I had 13 planted tanks. They ranged from the smallest at 5.5 and the biggest at 150 gallons. I am also one who tends to make jungles. I do not give the hours of attention one would need to keep them pristine and algae free. The taller plants grow, the closer to the light they get. With slower growers this becomes a problem. Once one has algae occuring on their plants there are also spores in the water.
So your suggestionn to ty the method is sensless for me. To make it work I would need to remove all the plants to treat them with club soda, But then I mneed to empty the tank of anything living I want to keep and then sterilize tthe rtank with a strong bleach solution. I need tokill the bacteria in the filters and substrate and on the decor. And hos much club soda will I need to clean a well planted 150 gal. Even my heavily planted 75 would not be practical.
I sent you a PM about this. In it I explained how I dealt with the same problems that soda soaking was supposed you fix. In my case the solution was cheaper faster and way less effort. Here it is:
or year I had a 50 gal tanks with plants only and not filled with them. it also had almost 100 amano shrimp. When the tall anubias would get algae I pulled them out of their tank and put them into the 50. I used to take plant out of the 50 to replace it. Then I learned that the shrimp would clean the algae off in a matter of hours. So often I could return the same plant.
The only thing this tank needed was a weekly water change. The shrimp ate the algae and their waste fed the plants normally in the tank. I should also say that I bought the amano shrimp as imported I picked up from the transshipper when they landed in NY. I also use ancistrus for algae and find some of my other fish eat it as well.
I also explained to you that my method for belach dipping plants di not comport what the folks who did so as part of their work. Anachris is not a plant I would ever bleach at any dose great enough to kill algae. I dipped anubias for 90 seconds and the algae dies and I have seen no harm to the plants. But that is my experience not documented science.
Here is what I concluded from all of this discussion. It is really only practical for use on newly purchased plants. It is not a way to remove algae from any planted tank of size once it is going. It is not practical for anybody with multiple planted tanks either. In many tank uprooting a plant to do the RR may also release the substrate ferts , if used, into the water column. That will make more algae than is on the plant or plants re,oved and the result will be more algae in the tank than before the RR was done. And then what about those folks who do the dirted bottom? Pulling pout plants from that to RR them would make a huge mess.
And lets do the math. Lets say to do RR on all the plants in a decently planted 50- gal. where a number of the plants almost reach the surface. You need to treat them all. So lets assume to weight them down horizontally and have them all submrged you need maybe 25 gallons of club soda. How much time and gasoline will one spend to get that 25 gallons?
And then if the algae returns after a few months you have to do it all again. My amano shrimp were cheaper and faster than doing the club soda. My time to pull and anubias on wood drop it into that 50 and then wreturn it when clean is about 5 minutes. How much work is RR?
The pprople doing this are plants nuts. The plants are often more important than the fish in the tanks in terms of the time and effort dedicated to the plants. So, even if the RR method works as described, it is not a practical solution, imo.
My home has no basement and I do not have a fish room. My tanks are in two building and 4 or 5 different rooms depending on the season. So the ambient lighting varies between the planted tanks in various room as do the number and types of fish in them and in some cases the inverts. I have tanks virtually algae free and others where it is a problem. I have hit the maximum number of tanks posisble spread around the house. So I have almost no space to set up a tank to do RR even if i wanted to.
So to those out there who want to do the RR process on their plants, be my guest. I see absolutely no reason to do so myself. If a real scientist were to plocclaim that a tank filled with club soda and loosely coverd contained no oxtygen in the water, he would be ridiculed as it is not possible. So, saying this is the case tells me a lot about the folks who did the "research" for the patent. If it was real science, there should have been a proper peer reviewed paper published.
I have one other problem with all of this. Co2 dssolved in water creates carbonic acid. Acid in water lower the pH. I believe the RR paper mentions a pH of 3.0. How much od heir results may be due to the low ph and not to the CO2 itself? This is expecially true for many bacteria. They cannot survive in acid water. I know this first hand because I worked with ALtum angels and when I got them inoorted I put them into a tank with a pH of 4.2, tds inthe 20 ppm range and with a UV unit. To make survival more likely anything in the tank was brand new and not from any of my existing tanks. I then ran the UV on the tank for a good week before the fish went in.
The reason for this was that in their native waters many of the bacteria we commonly have in our tanks in low levels was a great danger to them, They had no immunity what-so-ever against those bacteria since they never encountered them before.
