What plants for soft and acidic water?

[mordor]

From my personal experience I got problems with real SA plants. Echinodorus of various species do to live long in my tanks. On the other hand Aponogeton and Cryptocoryne species on the other hand are doing quite well. I am thinking about going to direction of pure biotope aquriums so systematically I am removing fish and plants that do not fit. I cannot do it at once, especially in case of plants, because I will end up without plants.

I need hints and suggestions about fast growing SA plants.

 

[aspen]

heteranthera zostefolia is a pretty fast growing plant if you've got the light for it. lilaeopsis brasilia is a nice mid- foreground plant, but i'm not sure how fast it will grow. with co2 and high light it should do fairly well. it is a nice bushy type of plant though. roseafolia and it's cousin lilacina are pretty fast growing, but none of these are close to the fast growing hygrophylia species from asia, imo.

i would suggest that you work on growing swords. imo, they seem to grow new shoots every couple of days. the requirements for swords are substrate fert and will go crazy in high light and co2 addition and need lots of iron to really flourish. a clay ball under the roots will do wonders. what is happening to them? are they being eaten by plecos or something? plecos are esp hard on swords, they like the 'woody' texture to the leaves. this is evidenced by large transparent brown patches in the leaves.

there are so many nice swords out there, from the e. tenellus, the quadricolatus (sp) right through the ozelot, esp the red (one of my favourites but a hybrid i'm afraid) up to the big ones, like the e. cordifloris and the e. amazonicus. there are so many choices. i think the quadricolatus is an especially nice plant if you can get some. they stay fairly small, only about 7- 9" max, can be used as a mid ground plant and have a very nice light green colour- a great accent plant against darker green plants.

it is pretty tough to have a planted amazon style tank without a sword or 2. they really characterise an amazon tank, imo. maybe you are short of an important mineral, maybe magnesium? what kind of fert are you using? what happens to them as they 'go south'.

rick

 

[farm41]

Take a look here Tropica they have most of the plants in the hobby today and they show the origin. You can probably find what you want here. When you're ready to order try Aquabotanic. Robert has a very good selection and the plants are wonderful.

 

[jowens]

One way I've had good success looking for softwater plants is searching the net for "planted discus tanks." As you know, discus present even more difficult problems for plants than Apistos due to discus' temperature requirements - so you can be sure that discus-safe plants will also work for Apistos. A couple of links:

http://www.geocities.com/discus_aquarium/plants.html
http://www.frii.com/~gbooth/AquaticConcepts/Articles/PAM_Discus.htm

As for commercial providers, I was recently delighted with the package I received from Arizona Aquatic Gardens:

http://www.azgardens.com/

What AZGardens does is put together specially arranged packages of plants...so you can get an "Amazon pack" or an "Asian pack" or whatever for various tank sizes. I got a 25-gallon "Amazon pack" to supplement my existing plants and the tank has never looked better. One hidden cost: after I got my package I realized the Fed-Ex bill for next day service cost more than the plants! I suggest whoever orders from AZG investigate who to do it for cheaper.

 

[mordor]

Aspen: are Seachem Flurish tabs good substrate fertilizer? I got pigmy chain sword from local club auction and I do not want to lose it again :x

 

[aspen]

according to their website http://www.seachem.com/ , they seem to have everything needed for plant growth. i am a little leary about the dosage they are suggesting, every 6 inches. imo, for chain swords, i would cut a tablet into 4 and use each piece at every 6". or even less, depending on how thick you are planting them. fert, imo, should be used very spare, until you can see that definite deficiencies are showing. fert companies always like to up the dosage, ime. it is most likely with swords of any kind, the first deficiency you are going to see is an iron deficiency. (light green leaves, almost see-through, on the new growth).

chain swords are a pretty high light plant, and they are small, so they are far away from your lights. how much light do you have over what sized tank? if you don't have enough light, all the fert in the world won't get them growing. this seems true for almost all of the low front planted plants. a good foreground is only grown nicely in a high light tank, ime.

good luck with them, they are a nice plant if you can get the red showing on the leaves.

rick

 

[mordor]

I got plants in two tanks:
1) 20g - 96W Power Compact + Carbo Plus CO2 - apnogetons bloom like crazy, nyphea lotus is growing fast and floating plants are discarded every two weeks
2) 12g - std 15W fluorescent tube - hygrophilia is growing here mostly, lotus is growing very slow. I put potted amazon sword here for test :twisted:

I will put some fertilizer into substrate to see what happens :wink:

 

[aspen]

a lot of plants esp swords are propogated emersed ie leaves out of water. when a plant like this is planted fully submerged, the leaves will melt. the plant looks like it is dying and you would probably wonder why you have such bad luck with these plants. by leaving them in a good environment, new leaves will come out of the centre. this new growth is the good stuff and the outer leaves will be pruned as they become worse.

when i plant a sword, i stretch the roots out to their full length ie stretch them in the water then pull the plant out. then cut at least a 1/4 to 1/3 off. i scrape 1/2 of the substrate away in a big circle. and fan the roots out. then i cover back the substrate, and at this point, i give the plant a little tug, pulling up the plant to expose the corona. make sure that the corona is exposed, you should see 1/4" -1/2" of roots at least, all around the plant. otherwise the sword will rot, go brown at the root level, and then the leaves will all die. even if you miss one side, that side will rot.

if you do it right, the plant will appear to do nothing for a week or 2, while the roots grow back. imo, the best thing that you can do to a sword is encourage root growth this way at time of initial planting. if you have ever pulled an established sword out of the sustrate you would see the huge fan of root growth they will make. if you didn't cut the roots back, don't pull it out now, leave it, just make sure the corona is exposed.

good luck, rick
p.s., you put an e. amazonicus into a 12 gal?? make sure you let me know when it gets too big and needs to go into the 20, or it may even be time to get a 55 gal growing, huh? let's hope for the best.

 

[jowens]

Aspen,

I've been having major problems with sword leaves "melting." Should I just clip off the leaves that are in bad shape? Part of the problem was that I had to leave my apartment just after I planted the tank and the swords got beaten up by algae. Now I'm back and I'm giving them lots TLC, but they don't seem to be recovering. If I clip the dying leaves, will new ones pop up? When you clip, should you clip right where the leaf meets the stem or down near the base - removing both the stem and the leaf?

I'm going to follow your root method too.

Jason

 

[farm41]

Do you still have the algae problem? Heavy algae can severely limit growth. What do you have for light? Fertilizer? Co2? Substrate?

 

[aspen]

if the leaves are melting, AND the corona isn't showing, then it is likely they are melting due to this. if they are new then it is likely they were grown emersed and the old leaves should come off as they melt. new leaves should be coming up regularly, as swords are good propogators. as the new leaves come out of the middle of the plant, remove the old one as they are apparently dead. when you pruine a leaf, everything that you leave will go brown and die, so get the leaf as close to the corona as possible. closely observe the new leaves for good quality green leaf material. if the new stuff is not of the nicest quality, full and green, then look for nitrient deficiencies. oh and make sure that you get the algae off of the existing leaves. plants need to photosynthesise, right?

hth, rick

 

[jowens]

My Vitals...

Tank: 46 gallon bowfront (shallower and wider front to back than typical 45-gallon tall)

Lighting: 110W power compact, with supplemental 30W high intensity flourescent.

Substrate: Laterite layer, #3 (fine) gravel layer, fine pebbles - fertilized with Seachem plant tabs

CO2 tank injected (new) - kH kept at 4, pH at 6.6, CO2 at approximately 25ppm.

Provide iron drops about twice a week. Trace element drops once a week.

...tonight when I go home and make sure the corona is showing and I'll trim away the worst of the dead leaves. I've been removing algae from leaves consistently, but it remains a problem. In my opinion, the tank is still stabilizing after a major move I put it through on April 1st. I think if I can get the plants healthy and photosynthesizing at peak levels, they will eventually outcompete the algae.

 

[jowens]

Aspen,

Took your advice last night. Trimmed away all dead and dying leaves and replanted swords making sure the corona is showing. I also turned my CO2 up a little bit, bringing the pH down to about 6.6.

 

[farm41]

I found the same thing when I had replanted some swords, I had them too deep and they began rotting. A couple of them were down to only 1 leaf left and I raised them up like Aspen said, they all came out of it, a little stunted, but that was good for a E. amazon, they get way too big.

I found the 'Amazon Discus' package at Aqua Botanic, here's the link http://www.aquabotanic.com/layoutcombo.htm , looks real good.