Why Do I Always Fail With Amazon Swords?

[nmonks]

Hello --

I'm always reading that Amazon swords are 'hardy' and 'easy to grow' but I don't seem to have much luck with them in my tank. Cabomba, Nymphaea stellata "red", to a lesser degree Vallisneria spiralis are growing very well, the Cabomba in particular needs to be cut back very regularly.

A few stats:

Lighting is 2 x Triton 30 W (with reflectors)
Tank 180 litres ("Juwel Rio 180"), max depth ~ 40 cm
Substrate coarse gravel and pond soil, topped with silver sand
Water is relatively soft and acidic (pH 6.5), mostly rain water with a little mains water added

What's the secret with Amazon swords. Is it the water chemistry, or the lighting, or the lack of CO2 fertilisation?

Are there varieties of Amazon sword that do better in my sort of aquarium than others?

Cheers,

Neale

 

[George Farmer]

I know some Echinodorus sp. prefer harder water. More lighting and CO2 will help but these shouldn't be an issue in your tank.

What water changes are you performing? Have you considered allelopathy? Some species of plant do not do well in the same tank, particularly if water changes are infrequent as this allows for allelochemical build-up.

For you interest I've just posted a similar comment on Peter Bradley's PFK blog (awaiting approval).

 

[Bloo]

I think I'm quite lucky (one blessing for harder water) my Amazon Swords grow like weeds with low light (1WPG) and no CO2. I have to remove around 15 leaves every week from 2 plants !
All they get are root tabs every couple of months and a splash of liquid ferts when I feel like it.
But then again, the pH in that tank is around 7.4 with a kH or 11 and gH of 17 - 19.

 

[Nim]

Apart from the Allelopathy.. Swords are very heavy feeders and do need a lot of nutrients. Though your substrate is good and shold be able to provide enough nutrients.. what I think is that once the roots go in, they start to rot a bit and the effect of soil makes things even worse.

I have also grown lush amazon sword jungles in the past in substrate like : Sand, Aquagrit, Soil & Sand layer, fine pea gravel and the place where I failed to grow swords was in a high tech setup: Flourite substrate, Metal Halide lighting and pressurized CO2.. the swords just melted away and died

I now have a sand based substrate again and the swords now seem to be picking up well... the difference I noted was in the lighting., Apart from slightly hard water and abundance of nutrients in the water they also need slightly warmer temperature bulbs like grolux, Arcadia original tropical etc.. they even do like Beauty light and Sunglo but severly dislike the likes of Aquaglo, 5200K/6500K/10000K halides, Power glo and life glo and triplus.

try and see if you can get a grolux or a original tropical with the triplus and it might make a difference.

What fertilizer are you feeding the tank? I have had ok results with Seachem Flourish but during my amazon sword days I used to feed the tank with Easylife Pro-fito.. not a easy product to come by and way expensive then Flourish but those days the seachem range was not available in the UK.

Nim
ps: Swords are easy to grow if you dont try to grow them too hard

 

[George Farmer]

.......but severly dislike the likes of Aquaglo, 5200K/6500K/10000K halides, Power glo and life glo and triplus.

Are you sure about that Nim? In my experience no plant is particularly fussy with regards colour temp.

I've grown around 20 species with light ranging from 3000K to 14000K, no significant difference. Obviously my CO2 etc. may have lessened any light/colour growth limiting factor but I doubt Neale's problem will be solved by swapping a tube.

I may be wrong though - it's not the first time.


Lit by 3 x 150W 10000K Metal Halides

 

[Nim]

.......but severly dislike the likes of Aquaglo, 5200K/6500K/10000K halides, Power glo and life glo and triplus.

Are you sure about that Nim? In my experience no plant is particularly fussy with regards colour temp.
3 x 150W 10000K Metal Halides and swords

Plants are really not fussy about the lights they recieve which is very true. Amazon swords for some reason I have noticed do not do well under halides or under Powerglo bulbs .. Maybe these bulbs are too good for them It was just an experience in general that I have had lush growth of swords in the mentioned light and they either did not have a brilliant growth or withered away in the other bulbs I had.

Apart from this I also believe that colour temperature and stuff does not really bother plants a lot unless it has an excessive of a single spectrum that algae can utilize better then plants..

Nim

 

[Bloo]

Hey I thought I recognised that name (Nimnat) Gorgeous tank you have there. Great to have you posting here

 

[Nim]

Sorry Missed the 3x 150W 10,000K halide one Every tank is different.. I did not have success with swords when I had the Arcadia 5200K 2x 70w over a Rio 240 on Flourite substrate.. no algae problems but all other plants grew very well except swords so either I have to blame the lights or the flourite.. Changing the bulb to a marine BLV 10000K (borrowed from someone else) did not show any benefit to the plants however, shifting to the BLV NDL 4200K gave a spurt of growth and flowering in echinodorous ozelot that had also been just surviving. Amazon sword by that time was almost all gone.

It had happened once previously as well when I replaced my grolux bulb by a powerglo in a 2ft deep tank thinking it will have better penetration, my swords started to show very bad signs. Back to grolux and they picked up again.

It probably was more then just the lights.. rather a combination of a couple of things but its worth giving a try to a different light bulb

Nim

I think I'm quite lucky (one blessing for harder water) my Amazon Swords grow like weeds with low light (1WPG) and no CO2. I have to remove around 15 leaves every week from 2 plants !
All they get are root tabs every couple of months and a splash of liquid ferts when I feel like it.
But then again, the pH in that tank is around 7.4 with a kH or 11 and gH of 17 - 19.

Yep Someone just pointed me to an article here and as usual I was registered on the forum for some time so I decided to jump in

 

[nmonks]

Hey,

Thanks for all the really interesting advice. I'm pretty sure the primary issue is water chemistry... and that was the surprise for me. I figured Amazon swords would be, well, Amazonian, like tetras and corydoras and whatnot, and happy in soft, acid water. It does seem a lot of the species traded don't like soft water at all. Do they use carbonate salts as a source of carbon perhaps?

The symptoms always seem to be consistent... first leaves loog ragged, then they die off, and while a few new leaves appear, these never seem to grow very large. The roots do indeed die back a bit, and compared with things like the water lily, which takes over the substrate given a chance, they don't ever seem to spread. I have taken them out of the rockwool pots, but perhaps too late.

One wild-card is my Panaque nigrolineatus. While it otherwise ignores the plants too flimsy to support its mass, could it (or rather, would it) attack an Amazon sword?

I suppose the other side of the question is what can be used instead of Amazon swords in terms of large-leaved, specimen plants. Just having a mass of Cabomba is great for beating algae (I have virtually none) and the fish love it, but it does kind of look like a weed patch instead of a garden!

For specimen plants that will do well under moderate lighting, am I thinking about some of the large crypts perhaps?

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Nim]

Many plecs are capable of devestating amazon swords. I had a L18 gold nugget that will make a 55g tank full of amazon swords last overnight at only 3" size

Unfortunatly its my other half's beloved fish so it cant go back to the LFS.. so I gave her a Malawi setup instead

Nim