# Post bleach recovery - transparent leaves



## pretzelb (Nov 13, 2005)

I tried the 19 to 1 bleach treatment to clean up my amazon sword and placed it in a temp bucket location to remove all bleach traces. I thought all was well until the next day when I saw the leaves were transparent or faded. I've kept the amazon out of my main tank for fear it may not recover but I've tried to keep it healthy with good light dosage and just a bit of Excel. 

Can I expect the plant to recover or do they never recover once the leaves turn faded / transparent? 

Odd or funny side note. When I removed the sword for it's treatment I found a baby sword that I had no clue existed. I gave it a quick bleaching too. It's leaves still appear to be nice dark green. My sword never looked overly healthy in my tank (I'm just starting and my setup is less than perfect) but something must have gone well for it to sprout like that.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

The sword should recover. Just put it in a tank with decent lighting, nutrients, CO2, etc. If you leave it in the bucket without good growing conditions, it will die. If you put it back in your main tank and the main tank has the hair algae that was the reason for bleaching the plant, then you bleached the plant for no reason, because the hair algae will soon be growing on the plant again. The only reason for bleaching a plant is to get rid of hair algae, and then to grow the plant in a tank that is free of the hair algae.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

As long as the roots are healthy then the plant will recover. Just cut off the leaves that are dying or have holes in them. You should be seeing new growth in a week or two. Some plants don't handle bleaching as well as others. Also if the plant was not in good condition before bleaching, then that can effect how the plant does after the bleach.


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## pretzelb (Nov 13, 2005)

Well I tried putting it back into the tank and it may be too late. The leaves were white for a while and then the fish decided to snack on them so there is barely anything left. I think the roots are still good so I may try cutting the leaves back and seeing how it does. The stems (if you can call them that) still look a nice shade of green so I'm hopeful. My guess is either it wasn't doing too well before the treatment or I should have done it for 2 min and not 3.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

If the petioles of the leaves are still green, it should recover. Just give it moderate light and chelated iron.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

If the petioles of the leaves are still green, it should recover. Just give it moderate light and chelated iron. The plant is going to need to get its iron through its leaves until it can get some new roots grown into the substrate. Amazon swords are good at that. 

Three minutes of 5% liquid bleach should not have done so much damage. That would be 50 cc of the bleach per liter of tapwater. it is better to rinse thoroughly and then return the plant to a tank where growing conditions are good---light, etc.


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