Sword plants gone weird

[Angry_Platy]

I got some new plants yesterday, broad leaf swords. They looked awesome when I put them in the tank. This afternoon I was doing my usual inspection of the tank when I realised that one of the plants leaves has gone all lacy kind of. Like something has eaten it. I have no snails in the tank so the only culprits are the bnose catfish (who have taken an interest in them since I put them in)....

Does this mean all the sword plants I put in will be eaten? I really wanted sword plants too

 

[Mr Miagi]

Eek, sounds like you Bnoses are havin a midnight snack on your swords angryplaty...

Nothin much you can do about it unless you add some cuccumber etc to try and keep them full.

 

[jimbooo]

are we talking about echinodorus bhleri (sp??)

if so they do that when first planted. mine took a few weeks to get established. make sure you have root tabs/fertaliser sticks under the roots and enough iron in the water.

should be fine then.

i have about 150 (wild guess) trumpet snails in my tank with a 6 inch plec and lots of other community fish (see profile for detail) my swords are the healthiest of all. the plec grazes on the hair algae but doesn't eat the plant at all.

i'd guess your problems are due to nutrient deficiency or just the fact the roots have been recently disturbed (or a combination of the 2)

 

[Angry_Platy]

Thanks jimboo

It would be lack of nutrients. I haven't fertilised for a week or so since I removed 90% of my original plants and didn't want to create too many nutrients for the algae to grow wild.

Once again, thanks

 

[jimbooo]

ok, just remember swords take 80% of their nutrients from the substrate so use fert sticks/root tabs rather than liquid fertaliser (you may need both in the end but do substrate first).

 

[Angry_Platy]

I never actually knew that. I was going to keep on adding my usual liquid fertiliser

THANKS heaps for that advice

Other plants I have are val and Rotala wallichii. Should they be given fertiliser through the substrate as well?

 

[jimbooo]

vallis will be fine with either fert.

not sure about the other, i have no experience with it.

you can tell by looking at the roots. my swords roots are HUGE, they spread the whole area of the substrate in a 40G. thats only 2 plants...

if the plant has thin & delicate roots then liquid will be better, with big heavily rooted plants (rosette plants in general rather than stem plants) root fertaliser will be necessary. especially if you have plain gravel without laterite..

glad to be of assistance

James

 

[Angry_Platy]

That probably explains why my blue stricta looked so awful before I pulled it out. I was using liquid ferts added every week and CO2 injection. When I uprooted both the plants the root system was MASSIVE, like it took out major chunks of my gravel.

Perhaps knowing what I do now I should give blue stricta another go

Thanks again for the tip. I have bookmarked this topic

 

[jimbooo]

no problem at all.

depending on how serious you are about plants laterite is the way to go.

only problem is you need to empty the tank of fish/plants first and mix it with the gravel.

it's a good days work but the difference is huge.

plants naturally get minerals from the soil on a river bed which is thick with clay. clay acts as a nutrient sponge holding all the good stuff right by the roots where it's needed.

with plain gravel there is nothing to hold the nutrients in the substrate. Laterite is refined clay hence why it makes such a difference.

if you add liquid ferts to a tank with laterite the ferts will be sucked in my the clay so the roots can get at it.

with plain gravel it just washes around in the water column, the leaves can absorb some of it but the roots are starved.

James