Amazon sword quit growing stems -melon sword too

[frostby]

I bought a juvenile amazon sword, rougly 4 -6 inches tall, it had long stems, and mostly round/spade shaped leaves. Over the last several months while trying to create a 'balanced' fertilized tank, the sword leaves died off and new leaves slowly grew - these new leaves are short stemmed, and long(like a crypt leaf), the majority of the leaf is from the tip to substrate...

Why do they do this?

I also have a red melon sword, it grows red leaves, but it also, has no stem length. -on comparison to other pics i've seen here.. what did I do to these poor plants

The details

55 gal
80W t10 flourescent
fertilize w potassium/iron every 4 days 10ml solution
30%weekly water change
7.6ph, 10nitrate, 0 ammonia and nitrite
DIY 2L CO2, can't get that above 12ppm yet.
don't remember kh,gh

Greg watson ferts just ordered yesterday for the first time...

have valisneria, crypts, hornwort, java fern... all these plants grow and look great.

[rich311k]

Sounds like they are changing from emersed to submersed growth. my melon has no stems to speak of either.

[frostby]

what does that mean? is this normal?

[rich311k]

It means they were grown mostly out of water by the grower. They grow faster that way. When you plant them they adjust back to growing under water. The leaf shapes change. In some plant you wouldn't beleive how different they become. Yes it is normal.

[frostby]

Interesting... At this rate I can't imagine the sword to take over and really grow large in my situation. I didn't know you could grow aquatic plants w/o being submersed in H20...

thanks rich 311k...

[JRagg]

Rich is definitely right. I noticed this on my red melon sword. The leaves that were 2 inches long on 6 inch stems turned into 8 inch leaves on 1-2 inch stems. I think the submersed growth looks a LOT better for this plant.

Here is the thread I made on the subject a while back.

In the pictures there you can see some emersed (leftmost leaf) and some submerged growth.

[frostby]

JRagg, thanks for your link, it's good to know that this happens to many others as well. as well as all the other little questions i had - were answered. Here I was worried it was a deficiency of some kind!!!

[JRagg]

Heh, nope. Healthy plants.

[fish_4_all]

For your CO2, a second bottle inline with your first could help and a good diffuser if you don't have one yet. I put mine in the intake of my AC HOB and get between 30 and 65ppm.

[malkore]

Not all plants will tolerate being out of the water.
Others do fine as long as they stay really damp, like at the base of a water fall where misting water is abundant.

[Lonewolfblue]

Another thing to watch for. With your sword, you may see a long stem coming up towards the surface. Let it grow out of the tank if you like. What this is is a shoot. And along the shoot, you'll see several nodes (places where leaves and flowers form). If these nodes are out of the water, they will flower. If the nodes are below the water, they will form roots. Also, after the flowering, if you stick the shoot back into the water, where the flowers were will form roots as well. Once you get a good amount of roots, cut the whole runner off the sword, then cut each individual plantlet off and replant. I'm currently getting 6-10 plantlets off of every shoot my swords sends up. You'll be amazed when this starts happening. It's so fun to watch as the shoot gets longer, and longer, and longer, and longer, lol.

[frostby]

THanks everyone, one of the swords did start growing a 'shoot' but i got so excited, i didn't wait for it to hit the surface, and removed the 3 new swords growing from it.

I use an XP2 for filtration, and added a small HOB, just to smash up my CO2, not only does it do that, but it makes a little spinning tornado of CO2 inside the water column which really seemed to improve my ppm vs the bubble ladder... thanks for the sugg's though.

[Alshain]

Hmm, I would be concerned about using an HOB to inject CO2. If the water is right up on the outlet of the HOB it would be less of a problem, but the water aggitation will outgas some of the CO2. With an XP2 you could spend a few dollars and build you a decent DIY inline CO2 reactor from some PVC pipe.

Check out these plans.

http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/co2reactor.htm

EDIT: I should mention, you need to do a sanity check on those plans, the XP2 uses 5/8" tubing, the eheim uses 1/2" tubing. So modify the plans as needed.

[frostby]

maybe this would explain why I can't jump over the 15-18ppm mark with co2, using the ladder would only put me at 7ppm. do the inline reactors work effectively with DIY bottles?

[Alshain]

I don't know yet, I'm still setting my tank up. But I don't see why not, the CO2 reactor works the same way regardless of how the CO2 gets into it. I'm going to build one of these this after noon. I will be using a yeast method and an XP2. Of course my tank wont be set up until sometime next week.

Another reason could be your CO2 recipie. If it isn't producing enough CO2, your not going to get it in the tank obviously.

[JRagg]

Your CO2 problem looks to be generation, not diffusion. Although piping it into a HOB filter isn't ideal, it does fairly well.

You only have 1 2L bottle on a 55g tank. I'm honestly amazed your levels are as high as they are. Yes, those CO2 reactors work with DIY. Purrbox uses an inline reactor powered by a pump with DIY CO2.

[frostby]

Actually I use a two liter bottle, the hagen is now attached to my 10gallon w/HOB, the bubble ladder is in storage.

I was really wondering if you (for example) hooked a 2 liter bottle up to the co2 reactor, wouldn't you have issues with back pressure from the filter pump? Or is everyone using a check valve with their $.99 DIY CO2?

[Alshain]

I was going to use a check valve, they cost a buck or 2. But even then, the design I posted was meant to be on the inlet line. The suction from the filter and the output from the CO2 generator should prevent any water from going into the CO2 generator. The check valve would be more to prevent water from going into the generator when the mixture starts to weaken, or if you turn off your filter.

On my 55 gallon tank I intend to have 2 2-liter bottles with mixture supplying CO2 to an empty 2-liter bottle (maybe some gravel in the bottom to keep it standing) which will catch any stray mixture from entering my tank. Then I will have a line from the empty bottle to a check valve and then a line from the check valve into the CO2 reactor which will be inline with the filter. The mixture does not enter the tank and the tank water does not enter the mixture.

EDIT: Small setback. Lowes was out of the reducers and only had brass barbs of that size, I would prefer Poly. I'm gonna try Home Depot or Ace Hardware later.