Pruning Large Sword Plants

[travis simonson]

I've got an Echinodorus 'Red Flame' which I received in completely emersed growth form with some 2'+ ozelot like leaves on stems. I planted it in the back center of my 125G and slowly pruned off these emersed growth leaves as it put out new wider, shorter submersed growth. The plant now features completely submersed growth which is much shorter (~1' length), but appears to have stopped growing altogether. I've been keeping my eye on it for about a month now and I'm seeing very little new growth and no increase in the size of the old growth. I'm guessing it needs some pruning of the existing growth but am not sure if I'm right about that or, if I am, how to go about trimming it. Do I trim leaves from the outside first, or do I trim off the leaves that look the oldest? I'm a relative newb when it comes to swords so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[BrianNY]

IME it takes quite a while for Amazon swords to grow. I only trim dying leaves and they always seem to be on the outer edges of the plant.

Here's my only sword when I first planted it about 18 months ago (sorry for the poor quality pic), but you'll get an idea of just how anemic looking this plant was.

 

[BrianNY]

Here's the same plant this July.

 

[BrianNY]

Finally a pic of the same plant taken this morning. BTW, this is a low light tank (just over 1wpg), no CO2, and dosing with only trace elements.

 

[travis simonson]

Very nice Brian! Some beautiful growth, especially for low light.

I'll follow your advice on pruning. So far there aren't any sickly looking leaves that appear to need trimming but a few have a bit of algae starting to grow on them (sort of like Anubias get in my tank) because they've been around so long. I've never seen a plant with such leathery leaves, you could practically make shoes out of these things

 

[rubysoho]

the algea is coming from excess nutrients in your water. The algea can be solved by shortening the time your lights are on, have a busy pleco, or changing your water/gravel vacuming more. I keep my 55 gallon lights on a max of 8 hours each day, I clean my tank pretty often (mainly twice a week) and I just added a pleco who devoured any algea on my plants overnight so he is snacking on algea waffers now.

 

[BrianNY]

I know the black brush algae you're talking about all too well. The funny thing about it is that it will only grow on items that don't move (such as heaters, tubing, rocks), or the edges of slow growing plants like anubias. It takes such a strong foothold that it doesn't have time to adhere to plants that are growing quickly.

I know I'm talking to the pro here Travis but you can either remove the leaf entirely or dip the affected leaf in a 19:1 beach solution for 2 to 3 minutes.

 

[travis simonson]

Thanks Brian. I don't think I'll be able to remove that sucker without pulling up about three square feet of substrate - I've never seen such an extensive root system - it's everywhere. :? I may do a little pruning and see how things look after that.

 

[Guest]

My first planted tank I did consisted of 3 Amazons and a Marble Queen Sword in a 40g. In 6 months I had 40g worth of Swords. The poor fish did'nt even have room to swim 8O Needless to say, one Sword would have been to big for a 40g. Live and learn.

It was'nt uncommon for me to prune back 2/3's of those Swords every six weeks or so. If it's a well established Sword with an extensive root system. I say get aggressive with the pruning. You'll be surprised how fast it sends up new, healthy growth.

BTW.....when I uprooted the Swords to sell, it disturbed every single thing in the tank. The roots were like 16" long. Just as long as the plants were tall 8O

Edit: dang Travis I just took a look at the pic of your tank. SWEEEET! Good job.

 

[travis simonson]

Thanks MT I just did a no-holds-barred pruning on the sword as suggested and found that, beneath all of that old growth, there was a surprising amount of beautiful looking new growth just trying to get out. It looks like it got a haircut from a drunk barber but the leaves that are left look great. Now to sit back and watch it fill back out. Thanks for the advice guys I feel like I'm back on the right path.

 

[timd818]

Edit: dang Travis I just took a look at the pic of your tank. SWEEEET! Good job.

He must be doing something we aren't. Spill the beans Travis

 

[travis simonson]

I'm not really sure if I'm doing anything differently. I do weekly water changes, use Tom Barr's Estimative Index dosing (modified a bit), and try to keep things fairly consistent. My fish are the number one priority, not the plants, although they seem to be getting along well together. If the fish are hard on a plant I can always find something else. It's been an incredible learning experience trying to keep plants with these little demons