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What's wrong with my swordplant?

6K views 57 replies 7 participants last post by  Zapins 
#1 ·
Hi,
when i got my red rubin sword, it looked like this:


Then a bunch of snails and 70 pleco fry later, the swords were decimated and every leaf had numerous holes in it as the plecos and snails loved to eat them quite a bit.

But now, after maybe 10 months now, the swords have shortened overall, their leaves have become much thinner, and they still get holes in the leaves, but no where near as many as when there were many snails and plecos:



I want to know what's up? are they missing nutrients? light?
They are planted in play sand substrate and are given an osmocote tablet every 6 months. Additionally i dose about 2mL of iron once a week, and around 2.5mL of Kent Pro-Plant fertilizer once a week. There are 2x 5 gallon water changes twice a week. Plants are lit in a spotlight of 3x 3W Cree LEDs (cool whites) so i know they have higher lighting.
Tank is stocked very well with an angel, platy, plecos, neons, so they get a lot of CO2.
Please help?
 
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#53 ·
dang, you really think so? i only have 3 BN pleco juveniles in here and i was hoping that when i reduced their numbers from 70+ to 3 that the plant eating would stop. i guess not lol. i never see them eating it though so it must be at night.

my other 6 plecos are all carnivorous hypancistrus so they wouldn't touch my plants.
 
#54 ·
Yes definitely pleco damage. Even 1 fish can mess up a sword plant quite badly. They are primarily nocturnal so they are likely doing it at night.

I'm not sure about carnivorous plecos, perhaps they do leave plants alone I've never really kept them.
 
#55 ·
turns out, i was missing Potassium...i checked all my ferts and that was the only missing nutrient - an important one too.
got some today.
swords look horrendous. old leaves are dying, holes, yellow, death, horrible...x_x

potassium deficiency makes sense, I will update on it once it gets going again.
 
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