# Holes in Sword Plants (Newbie Planter)



## Jordin (Sep 14, 2011)

Hi,

I have recently added some new plants to my tank because I upgraded to pressurized Co2. 

I am very new to planted tanks and am realizing it's a lot harder than I thought to maintain a lush healthy planted tank but well worth it.... I have a lot of respect and admiration for all of you with those full and vibrant planted tanks!

The problem I am having now is that my Queen Sword and Amazon Sword plants are getting holes in their leaves aswell as one other plant...

Here is my setup:

- 65 Gallon: 36" Long x 24" Height x 18" Depth
- Dual T5HO Lights: 1 Bulb 6,500k The other 10,000k
- Pressurized Co2 with Glass Diffuser which bubbles up to spray bar and Maxi-jet 400 circulation pump. Tiny bubbles fill the whole aquarium and there is great circulation through the tank.
- Dosing with Seachem Line Liquid Ferts: Flourish, Potassium, Phosphorous and Nitrates
- I have dry ferts but got the liquids first and thought it would be easier to dose as per instructions on a bottle as I started.
- Filtration is Rena XP3 and Aquaclear 70

I tried some lower light easier plants to start with 6 months ago. Some Java Fern and Anubias... I wasn't dosing Macro ferts and only used Flourish & Excel liquid carbon. I had some nasty Black Beard Algae (what i thought it was) that covered everything! Walls, rocks, wood, plants... It was nasty... I took out all decorations, to clean them, cut all leaves back that were covered and realized I was probably screwing up by not dosing proper ferts and not having enough or real co2... Hopefully that problem is gone but we shall see as time goes on...

Now that I have all the proper equipment and ferts, I bought lots of new plants and don't want to lose them! 

I have had the new plants for about a week and I have done a 50 percent water change and dosed ferts again as per Seachem directions on the bottle.

I have read that it may be not enough Potassium so I dosed 2 more capfuls tonight (says 1 cap for 30 Gallons) every 2 - 3 days.

I purchasd a phosphate test kit tonight which will read between 0 - 10ppm and I also have an Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite test kit. I will be testing those daily so I can get some more information and track how I'm dosing and see how the plants are responding. 

Is there any other test kits I should pick up?

I'm looking for some advice on what might be causing the holes. Also, looking for any other advice that may be helpful. Should I go right to the dry ferts or use the rest of my liquids first? 

Thanks very much in advance, I will be starting a tank journal with pictures soon. 

Oh... I'm using a drop checker with liquid to monitor Co2 levels. I have the Co2 on a solenoid which goes on and off with the lights. The Liquid in the drop checker goes a nice green when the co2 is on and in the morning it is blue. The fish swim about very happily and they are not gasping for air at all.

Thanks,


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

some plants take a big hit when moved to a new tank and need time to get used to the new water. I had a sword that I bought, and the day after I put it in, there were holes all over the leaves like a few fish were eating it, it turned out to be the plant not being used to the water. It took a while but the plant is now growing great.

Just have to give them time to get used to the new conditions.


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## NuclearTech (Mar 23, 2008)

Hi Jordin,

I'm not an expert, but I did have one thought while reading your post: What type of substrate are you using? I believe sword plants are heavy root feeders, meaning they get a lot of their nutrients through the substrate. Have you considered this?

Cheers.


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## Jordin (Sep 14, 2011)

NuclearTech said:


> Hi Jordin,
> 
> I'm not an expert, but I did have one thought while reading your post: What type of substrate are you using? I believe sword plants are heavy root feeders, meaning they get a lot of their nutrients through the substrate. Have you considered this?
> 
> Cheers.


I am using the Eco-Complete substrate. I actually added one more new bag to the tank before I added the plants. I have three bags total giving me at least 3 inches of depth.

I also added some root tabs. I forgot to add that info in my initial post!


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## NuclearTech (Mar 23, 2008)

Hmm, well that answers that. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can chime in here, but it sounds like you are doing lots of things correctly. If the plants are only a week old, I may tend to agree with Pyrrolin in that perhaps they need to die back and adjust to the new water conditions. Just my $0.02 but I'd let these leaves die off and wait several weeks for the new growth. Unless I'm missing something very important here...


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