Transparent Amazon Sword leaves

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aqua7

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 9, 2011
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112
Location
Southern California
I have 2 Swords and they seemed to be doing great, but 2 weeks ago I added Java Moss and Java Fern to my tank and since then the leaves on the Sword seem to be getting transparent and the bigger green leaves are being over run by algae.

What should I do to help them? What leaves should I trim? What kind of fert should I add?

Any advice will be helpful...

My tank is 10gal with 2 20w CFL bulbs
 
aqua7 said:
I have 2 Swords and they seemed to be doing great, but 2 weeks ago I added Java Moss and Java Fern to my tank and since then the leaves on the Sword seem to be getting transparent and the bigger green leaves are being over run by algae.

What should I do to help them? What leaves should I trim? What kind of fert should I add?

Any advice will be helpful...

My tank is 10gal with 2 20w CFL bulbs

Are you dosing your plants? It's most likely that the nutrients that is in your tank is just enough for the ones that was already there before you added the java moss and java fern and now there is not enough nutrients for the swords. Maybe you are bottoming out on some of the nutrients. Try "tetra flora-pride" and "flourish excel" by seachem. Flourish excel is a liquid carbon. Tetra flora-pride has iron and other traces than plants really need.
 
excel could be good... especially as a bit of an algae control (in addition to being beneficial for the plants). This would be my #1 recommendation. If you do get some excel, go easy at first and ramp up over the course of a week or 2, and watch your java moss.... there are varying reports of it negatively effecting java moss (personally I used it for a long time in a tank with java moss with no adverse effects). What kind of algae is growing on the leaves (what does it look like)? This could help point to whether there might also be a lighting issue. Do you happen to know the K ratings of your CFLs? Are they the 10000K daylight bulbs?

Do you have a nitrate test kit? What are your nitrates testing out at?

Swords are heavy root feeders... I would recommend root tabs before the flora-pride or something similar (not that it would hurt, but it might not help nearly as much as getting some nutrients into the substrate).
 
Fort is the best person to ask when it comes to plants. He helped me with my planted tank.
 
The algae looks like little hair carpets and some longer string kind. I don't know the K ratings, but I believe they're 6500K.

Ammonia:0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 2 ppm

Should I pull out any of the leaves? Only the green leaves have algae. The transparent smaller ones don't seem to have any. I leave the light on for 12 hours btw.

I will definitely have to go get root tabs.
 
Ok. I would start by cutting the light to 8-10 hrs a day and root tabs under the swords. Those 2 things may fix your issue. The nitrates could also be a potential problem though. That would be my next area of focus if the above 2 actions don't help.

Trim the dead leaves as well...
 
Have the same issue.

The transparent leaves are already dead (or 100% will die) or the plant can reestablish itself?
 
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