Libby Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 I have a 60 litre aquarium that has some Amazon swords in it, along with some crypts, anubius and limnophila sessiflora. Everything is doing well, apart from my Amazon swords won’t grow tall. They grow lots of new leaves all the time, but never get bigger in height, it’s weird. I have fairly hard water, I use root tabs and dose once a week with seachem flourish comprehensive (no getting easy green in the UK 😢). I’ve noticed that on some of the leaves there are small brown spots, but the majority of leaves are very healthy. I prune the unhealthy ones occasionally and I took a picture that I hope has attached of the brown spots. Has anyone an idea on what it could be? I was thinking perhaps the light needs to be on longer as currently it’s set to like a sunrise, gets brighter, then dims then goes off at night in a gradual way. So I was considering turning it up to full brightness and just having that on for 8 hours a day, however I don’t want to ruin it for the other plants that are doing well. Stocking wise I just have a few neons, a betta and lots of ramshorn snails. Any ideas would be welcome! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kammaroon Posted January 3, 2021 Share Posted January 3, 2021 According to this blog, you are likely to be deficient in potassium: Nutrient Deficiencies: Why Your Aquarium Plants Are Dying WWW.AQUARIUMCOOP.COM Do you have the perfect planted aquarium setup, but your plants are still dying one by one? Even if you’re regularly dosing fertilizers, your plants might still be missing key nutrients. In this article, we want to teach how... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wes L. Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 In my experience I haven't had any luck growing these in hard water. I have a tank that's 13dGH and I tried growing Amazon Swords in it a couple of times, and I had the exact same experience that you're having. I also keep a softer water tank that is 6dGH. The last swords I had I pulled them out of my hard water tank and planted them in my softer water tank because I wanted to see if they would grow any better....and sure enough, after a handful of months I saw a huge difference. They really flourished in the softer water, so unfortunately your hard water could be the issue. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy's Fish Den Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 13 hours ago, Wes L. said: In my experience I haven't had any luck growing these in hard water. I have a tank that's 13dGH and I tried growing Amazon Swords in it a couple of times, and I had the exact same experience that you're having. I also keep a softer water tank that is 6dGH. The last swords I had I pulled them out of my hard water tank and planted them in my softer water tank because I wanted to see if they would grow any better....and sure enough, after a handful of months I saw a huge difference. They really flourished in the softer water, so unfortunately your hard water could be the issue. I have hard water, 10-12dGH and higher at times and have no problem growing sword plants. As long as you feed them they will grow, lots of root tabs, sword plants are very heavy root feeders. I have a large one in my 93 cube that I put two root tabs under every two weeks when I do a water change. If I happen to go longer between changes, the leaves will start turning yellow and getting spots like the OP showed. I also have other sword plant varieties in other tanks that have aqua soils such as Fluval stratum and eco complete and I still add root tabs to help them. @Libby I would start by putting one more root tab under the plant than what you have been using and see what happens, mind you it will take a week or two or even longer before you might start to see any differences. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H.K.Luterman Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 My largest amazon sword really didn't take off until after about a year's time. I fed it root tabs but I guess it just needed to fully settle in? It's leaves now reach the top of my 40 breeder, when it was half that tall when I first planted it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Libby Posted January 4, 2021 Author Share Posted January 4, 2021 Thanks all. @kammaroon it does look like potassium deficiency! I will try more root tabs, oh dear I haven’t been giving them enough then as I’ve only popped new ones under there every few months or something, I couldn’t find much info about how often to put root tabs in, so I will up the amount. Maybe that’s why it’s just affecting the swords because they feed at the roots, and everything else is sucking stuff out the water column... I wouldn’t be surprised if the hard water doesn’t help, it’s so rubbish for everything! Maybe one day I’ll move to an area with lovely soft water and all my fish keeping troubles will be sorted! Certainly I think plants would grow better and I could keep a wider range of fish more successfully. I think soft water has higher levels of dissolved co2 in it. Are there any benefits to hard water apart from being able to keep livebearers (which I do love!) 😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lefty o Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 i would definately up the root tabs to monthly or more. they certainly like to be fed, and then fed some more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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