# Dwarf Sword Plant



## jaybird002 (May 12, 2006)

Sometimes I wonder if I have cultivated the world's first dwarf sword plant. It was a good-size plant when I bought it, but each new set of leaves was punier than the last. Now it is about 2 or 3 inches tall, shorter than the anubias nana and narrower than the crypts. Yet the leaves are bright green, so I don't think it is a nutrient deficiency. The jungle vals almost took over the tank until I removed most of them. Regular vals are growing well. So are the hornwort, sags, crypts, and anubias. But why would a 12-inch swordplant wither away to barely a 2-inch specimen?

Tank is 29-gallons with 55 watt CF light, plain gravel substrate with laterite and Flourish tabs around the sword plant. Occasionally I add Kent plant food (micronutrients with iron, I believe). No CO2, and don't intend to add any.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem is and what would make the sword plant perk up?

Thanks for your help.


----------



## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

it's probably because of no CO2 & low-ish lights & low nutrients.


----------



## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

Possible that the other plants are out competing your sword for nutrients.


----------



## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Oh yeah, good point... I've also read an article somewhere that vals actually utilize chemical warfare on its neighbors. It sends out chemicals that would stunt its neighbor's growth.


----------



## essabee (Oct 11, 2006)

It happened to me once that every plant would grow well in my moderately lit no CO2 aquarium except for a lone sword. The sword was green, unshaded by the other plants but still each leaf would emerge smaller than the last. I ended up with a bonsai of a normal sword.  

I plucked it out - dug under the spot where it had existed - it was sand substrate - put in soil wrapped in tissue paper - covered it with sand - replanted the sword.rayer: 

Viola! I lost a bonsai and gained a normal sword.:mrgreen: 

Since then I believe that swords are easily outcompeted in absorbtion of nutrients in the water column by other plants and need to be fed through their roots.


----------



## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

I had a similar experience with a sword plant about 10 years ago, also in a 
29. It went through several cycles of growth, where the average leaf was at least 12 inches long, and decline, where the leaves were about three inches. 

I didn't know much about planted aquaria then. The tank had an inert substrate, low light, and no dosing. Then I converted the tank to a soil substrate, and the sword took off and never stopped. It finally grew too large for the tank, and I removed it by cutting the roots about an inch from the plant.

It is now temporarily rooted in a gravel substrate, getting its nutrients from the water column, and looking happy if quite a bit smaller. It must be at least 15 years old at this point.

Bill


----------



## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

and then you talk to people who have very little light, nothing but plain gravel, no ferts no c02, and the plant grows massive! And there are plenty of people growing swords in a low tech approach like the Walstad method where the swords out grow the tank. There must be a number of factors involved to explain this.


----------



## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Most swords are capable of rapid growth - adding dry plant mass as quickly as almost any stem plant if conditions are right. To really do well, they seem to require root zone fertilization above all else. They're generally widely adaptable and aren't too picky about light or CO2, within reason. I suspect your little plant is just hungry.


----------



## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

That would seem logical, to increase growth you increase light and nutrients. I have sword plants under low light that don't grow an inch for months, but any time I go to a fish club and talk to some old timer who thinks us plant people are a bunch of nerds, I am always told the same thing... he has something like a 20 watt bulb on a 55 gallon tank, no C02, no fertilizer, and the plant is 30" tall with 50 leaves and weighs five pounds!

If you look closer though, it took years for the plant to get that size in a tank that has been running since the 30s. It's all that nitrogenous mulm collected after 30 years!


----------



## Muirner (Jan 9, 2007)

Swards are defentally classified as root feeders. I mean look how large their roots get when they are pulled from a tank. They are MASSIVE. So i think that it could be a lack of nutrience from the soil. You can try to insert nutrient tabs and see hwo that works...


----------

