Pin Holes In Amazon Sword Plants Leaves

[regimail]

I bought few potted amazon sword plants. Within 2 days they have started developing pin holes on the leaves. I have just buried the pot in the gravel directly. I did not remove the plants from the pot.

I dont have any CO2 system or any fertilizer in the tank. Just 2 fluorescent tubes left on for about 12 hours.

 

[Davo86]

your fish have been nipping the plants

 

[regimail]

your fish have been nipping the plants

I dont think the fish are nipping them. They are in center of leaves and looks like burnt marks.

 

[Truck]

sounds like a potassium deficiency

 

[RadaR]

Hhmmm, as already mentioned the 2 most likely causes is potassium deficiency or fish eating the leaves.
I'd be suprised if the plant showed signs of deficiency after only 2 days, however anything is possible I guess.
Keep and eye out for any naughty fish and start dosing an all round good fert.
Btw, decrease the light levels to 10hours. Plants don't require anymore than this, any more and it goes towards algae growth.

 

[Davo86]

your fish have been nipping the plants

I dont think the fish are nipping them. They are in center of leaves and looks like burnt marks.

do you have any pics? are they like smalled jagged holes with black edges that appear to be dieing off if so i wouldn't put it past being caused by your angels or zebra loach,

 

[regimail]

Here are some that I took earlier

 

[Johnlenham]

Here are some that I took earlier

looks like fish or snail damage to me but im not an expert by any stretch of the word;p

 

[RadaR]

Aye, looks like it.
Prune off the leaf (pull it off as close to the bottom of the plant as possible).

 

[TheConstantGrower]

I know kinda what im doing with the plants, and ive had them for years, not an expert but that looks like they have been being munched on

BUT

Im looking at some of the other leaves, seeing brown curing around the edges, and overall lack of robustness and color, and a bit of blackish looking algae appearing (could be the picture and not BBA, i hope, for your sake)

as was said before. Trim the dead and dieing. and i always unpot the plants clean the roots and then plant them, ive never had good experience with keeping them in the pots and i hope you didn't leave in the rock wool or whatever media the plants cam in, in the tank, as it can rot and kill your roots.

Those are just my 3 and a half cents. good luck!

 

[regimail]

Thanks for your responses.

I have not seen any fish eating the plants so my guess is potassium deficiency.

Question is what should I do about it?

Also I left the pot as it is, so it does have wool in it. I will remove the plant from the pot/wool and plant them directly in the gravel.

Good spot TheConstantGrower. The picture I attached was an old picture I had taken. Here is the full story.

4-5 months ago I bought 6 small amazon sword plants. (I think they are the baby variety, if there is anything like that). After a couple of weeks it developed the pinholes seen in the picture. Few days later disaster struck. All my leaves were black, the gravel at the bottom was all black. I read about it and found out that it is BBA (I guess). So I cut all the leaves (tried to clean it first doh..). So all that was left in the tank were roots and bare stem for the plants.

Then I had to go away for 4 weeks. I left autofeeder on feeding fish once a day. When I cam back, as if by magic, all the BBA was gone and I had some green algae instead. The plants from which I had cut all the leaves seem to be alive, not very well though. There are some small leaves on every plant but they are not growing.

Last Saturday I bought another 6 amazon sword plant. These are big plants. I noticed similar pinholes as I had seen earlier on the new plants. Unfortunately I dont have anyway taking the picture as the 2 leaf on which I have seen the pinholes are well at the back I cant take clear picture of them. But I am sure that those holes are similar to what are seen in the attached picture.

Now my main worry is I hope I dont get BBA again in my tank. Is there anything I can do to avoid it.

 

[TheConstantGrower]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. but at least now you can get on the combat front early.

 

[regimail]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. but at least now you can get on the combat front early.

There are no signs of BBA at the moment and I hope it stays that way. What precautionary measures should I take so that I dont get it.

Any recommendation on the pinhole issue. There few more leaves which has got the problem now.

 

[aaronnorth]

I would put it down to fish/ snails eating the plants. Potassium defficiencies look more like burnt holes (they have yellowing around the edges), they are also samller in size than the picture given.