Problems With Amazon Sword

[flyhawk]

i feel like everybody else can grow an amazon sword except me
i have about 1.6 wpg, laterite in my pea gravel, 18 neons, a pleco ,and 3 angelfish
whats wrong ? ive seen many people grow amazons without ferts, and i dont want to dose them.
Whats wrong?

 

[nosoup4you]

A pic of your swords might help to narrow down the cause.

 

[flyhawk]

well, thats a problem because i cant put pictures on!
i can describe it, though.
it never grows higher than 4 inches, and the leaves die after about 2 weeks.
it is also very rough and breaks easily(the leaves)
now, i used to have a red rubin sword that did good because i had it in a peat moss ball, but shouldnt the sword still do good in gravel with lots of fish poop and stuff?

 

[nosoup4you]

Swords are actually pretty big root feeders so you could try putting some root tabs in and if you are particularly averse to ferts a peat ball wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

[flyhawk]

well, im worried if i rip up its huge root system, im going to cause a green water epidemic!
if i wasnt worried about that, yeah i would problably put in root tabs or peat
Ijust got over a 9, YES 9 month green water problem!

 

[nosoup4you]

You could just take some peat balls or tabs and just shove them down around the roots. Breaking up some of the root mass isn't necessarily bad.

 

[flyhawk]

oh , thats intresting..... , its really easy fopr me to do peat balls. so your saying make a 1/2 inch ball of peat and shove it around the roots?

 

[nosoup4you]

Yeah, should work pretty well.

 

[flyhawk]

i just figured out how to post pictures so ill get a pic of the swords

 

[flyhawk]

Here they are, also the store gives you the sword with that green filler stuff around the roots so it fills the pot/ am i supposed to take that off?

 

[liamt2k6]

hmm i have the same problem but ine keep dying

 

[nosoup4you]

I would say that is more than likely an iron or potassium deficiency. Here is a good link for diagnosing deficiencies in live aquatic plants.

 

[AdAndrews]

yes its a deficiancy, you need a fertiliser, a good all in one fert is the Tropica nutrition plus from aqua essentials- various volumes, 500ml is about 14.75- something like that

are you using a fert?

 

[flyhawk]

well, that means i wold have to dose ferts, though

 

[AdAndrews]

yeah, and???.... its easy.. dose ferts or have that wonderfull plant- your call, im just trying to help you out mate, what do you want me to do?