# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Plant Focus: Echinodorus ozelot



## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

The Ozelot sword. This hybrid has been around a while. Anybody growing this?


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

I have 3 red ozelots, but 2 of them in my 75 gallon tank seem to be dying







I don't know whats wrong. All of the other plants are doing great, but the ozelots leaves are turning into nothing but nets. all of the leaf material between the veins has disappeared. I don't know if it is a nutrient deficiency or animal damage.

the one in my 20 seem to be doing ok now that the algae is under control. It is certainly in better shape than the ones in the 75.


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## imported_Creature (Feb 6, 2003)

Do your sword plants have new leaves? If so, then it's probably the old emersed leaves that orginally came with the plant that are senescing. Most swords sold are grown emersed, which is why they look so great when they arrive at the LFS. Even those purchased from online sources may have been grown emersed, don't know about AB, but I spent $27.50 for a single large Echinodorus "red flame" from another source and it came with large emersed leaves. These turned paper thin and into "nets" which I cut away. It is getting new leaves, though, so perhaps your plants aren't dying at all, just morphing to a submersed lifestyle. I got a new "Kleiner bar" sword recently and sheared it right from the start to only one leaf. Those emersed leaves are useless for a submersed condition. 

I haven't been interested in "Ozelot" in a long time. With the introduction of new hybrids, there are more choices that haven't been "over done." I know it ain't fashion, but I want to try something thing new.


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## imported_BSS (Apr 14, 2004)

I've had pretty good luck with my Ozelot. It's the one sword plant I'm still keeping. Check out my gallery: http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/1306023812/m/251100558.

In the first (low quality) photo, the leaves were much greener and near the top of my tank. In the second tank shot (the third photo), the colors has brightened and the leave length had gotten shorter. In both plants, you can see stems that produced a fair number of plantlets.

I'm debating removing it, only because I want to open up my aquascape a bit. But, this was one of my first plants, so we'll see if I can actually bring myself to do it.

Brian.


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

> Originally posted by Creature:
> Do your sword plants have new leaves? If so, then it's probably the old emersed leaves that orginally came with the plant that are senescing.


It was growing like mad, new leaves all the time. Now the new leaves aren't coming in as fast and ALL of the leave are disintegrating like that, except for the newest that haven't attained any size yet. As the new leaves get large they start having problems.


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## imported_Rob (Feb 2, 2003)

Bright light and co2 and 78 degrees and I cant stop this plant. I must prune 3 big leaves a week to stop it from shading everything else . I also had a flower stalk that I kept under water and I got 3 new plants!!! Good luck.
RH


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## imported_Creature (Feb 6, 2003)

Margolis, The glassy leaves and limited new growth sounds like a some nutrient dificiency. Since swords can be heavy root feeders, maybe they have depleted the substrate in their immediate area. I would supplement the substrate with root tabs of some sort.


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

Creature, that is what I thought also. I have had root tabs in and then put some more in about 3 weeks ago (flourish tabs) and things just keep getting worse. They were growing like mad up until about a month ago when some of the outer leaves started going skeletal and the new leaves started slowing down. I put some more root tabs in, but things just keep getting progressively worse. I see a few more new leaves starting to come up, have to wait and see what happens.


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

I am going to post a couple of pics. This first one was taken the first week of january. It shows both swords in the 75.


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

this second one is what they look like now.


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

I use to get that all the time with my swords when I first started growing them. Flourish tabs does not have every thing they need. You need to add iron tabs too. DO you add K ? and or you sure you are getting enough, not to much. The first thing I did with mine was the root tabs... That didn't seem to stop the melt down But after I started dosing K things got better and I have never had that happen agian thats been years ago.

Hawk


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

Thats a sword plant? Looks more like a lace plant! I have never seen that severe leaf damage before. You should cut those leafs off. All its doing is polluting the tank as they decompose.


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## Wahter (Nov 15, 2004)

That looks like something's been munching on the leaves too - do you have any pl*cos in the tank? although queen arabesques and zebras are supposedly more carnivorous, I've seen them scour the surface of some of my Anubias and Echinodorus plants.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

I agree with Walter, do you have plecos in there?


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

That is exactly what use to happen to my swords. I could watch a sword plant melt down over night. That's how fast it happens. Like I said I think I has to do with low K. I started using iron root tabs and 13-4-5 plant sticks. doing twice/week dosing of K and it stopped. I haven't had any thing like it since.

Hawk


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

I have a little 1" clown pleco. I don't believe he is doing the damage.


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## Wahter (Nov 15, 2004)

move that little guy out and see what happens. I've also seen gold nuggets scour the plants - they are scraping off algae, but damaging the leaves in the process.


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

nope, he isn't going.

A: he never gets on the plants. He stays right around his little piece of wood.

B: Clowns are known to be safe in a planted aquarium.

C: There is no way he could have done as much damage as was done so quickly. It would take that little guy years to do that much damage.

D: No other plants were damaged. It is only the 2 ozelots that have this problem.

E: even if it was the clown, I would still keep him. I like these little peckoltia plecos. They don't get over 2" fully grown


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## Wahter (Nov 15, 2004)

The same could be said about the L-260 being safe with plants, but when I moved it to another tank, the sword plants recovered.

The other plants for the most part aren't going to have leaves wide or strong enough to support the pl*co - rotalas, vals, crypts. If there was a nutrient difficency, wouldn't it show up in some of the other plants as well? Also some clowns are nocturnal - are you watching the fish at night hours after the lights are off?

Just speaking from my experience. Your milage may vary.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

Perfect timing!









This was some unmarked sword from Petsmart. It already had a stalk with two plantlets on it when I bought it. I'd thought at first it was ovalis... now I'm thinking it's an ozelot?

It's put out a second stalk since it's been planted (2/27/05).









The plantlets. Leaves start out red, and then turn green with brown/red spots.


















A relatively new leaf on the other sword planted on 3/5/05:


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

Yep, thats an Ozelot, it has the spots and the leaves are turning red


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

Thanks Robert!









So should these be allowed to bloom (Will they die back after blooming)?

Betty


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

You can let any sword bloom. It will also grow baby plants at the surface as well. The bloom is not all that spectacular, but its kinda neat, particularly if you have never seen it before. It looks like you have a nice healthy mother plant.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

Cool.









Yea, it was a lucky find.

I'm going to have to plant them soon or the roots are going to grow into the substrate.

Saw something here while back that indicated you could cut the plantlets off leaving the stem. Is there any benefit to doing it that way vs just chopping off the stem near the mother plant?


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

Well if you cut off the runners you will get more leaf growth on the Mother plant


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## Josh Simonson (Feb 4, 2004)

Is there a way to encourage swords to flower? I've kept them for years and never gotten a flower stalk, for most of the swords I wouldn't care to have more, but it'd be cool to propagate my compacta swords since they make a nice foreground in my big tank. Maybe fiddling with the photo-period triggers them? I'm sure the commercial breeders must have a foolproof method...


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

Josh do you have rich fertile substrate? If not add some root tabs. I had some compacta swords that when just wild in a very fertile substrate. Runners every where and the plants grew to 12 inches. I couldn't use them as midground plants any more.

Hawk


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## Josh Simonson (Feb 4, 2004)

I give them some jobes spikes once and a while, but their kind of in the corner where the light is less. There are larger swords more towards the middle that also get the jobes stakes and never flower. Could pruning prevent this? I trim off the old leaves to keep them from growing too big.


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

I really don't know what I do to get them to propagate. IT gets to be a pain because I trade them at the LFS and they have more then they can sell. So I just cut the runner's before they grow plantlets. I wonder if its could be a water temp thing. I do large water changes twice/week with cold water. A combination of temp and PH drop might trigger them. How much light do you have?

Hawk


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## Josh Simonson (Feb 4, 2004)

2.5WPG, and I do weekly 50% water changes with cold water. Maybe I'll try giving the compactas a more prominent position and fertilize them heavilly. I'll have to play some 'musical plants' though to accomplish that.

BTW, I mis-spoke when I said compacta, my little swords are Echinodorus parviflorus "Tropica". Until a little search I thought the two were synonomous, I thought something was up when you said they got 10" tall though! I think they'd be good foreground in my deep tank, but I've only got 3 or 4 of them, hardly a verdant field...

I do have good luck pruning swords to keep them orderly and smaller, I cut off all but 6 or 8 newest leaves, and on the swords in the back I cut off all the leaves that reach towards the middle of the tank, so I only see the tops of the back leaves. The tropicas never need pruning.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

That second runner is now emergent with a couple of plantlets starting. Maybe two more nodes fixing to shoot out leaves?


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## ramsvella (Apr 24, 2005)

> Originally posted by BSS:
> I've had pretty good luck with my Ozelot. It's the one sword plant I'm still keeping. Check out my gallery: http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/1306023812/m/251100558.
> 
> Hi BBS,
> ...


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## imported_BSS (Apr 14, 2004)

I'm assuming you're talking about my first tank shot. I got that sword in an assortment pack, so I'm not sure of the type. I think I decided it was a mellon sword (never looked up the latin name). As it grew too big and was shading other plants, I uprooted it along with the Aponongenton ulvaceous (sp?) and gave it to a friend with an outdoor pond. So, not much info regarding your question about returning it to submersed form.


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## ramsvella (Apr 24, 2005)

These are plantlets from my ozelot green. However, only submersed plantlets remain healthy since the ones that grow outside watersurface tend to cripple.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

I moved the runner to where it was mostly submerged, so the plantlets will stay happy.

Here is a bloom.

















It's about an inch across.


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## imported_aspen (Feb 20, 2003)

do ozelot flowers produce fertile seeds or are they sterile because they are a hybrid?

rick


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