Help Holes and rips in Amazon Swords

[andye]

Hi,

I replanted my 210 gallon discus tank with Amazon swords, anubias, and a few other slow growing species. Lighting for this 6 ft tank is 3 150 watt mh. Co2 is provided by a AM1000 reactor cranked to where the fish and shrimp are not disturbed. My problem is that the large leaves of the echinoderms are have long slits or rips from the spine. I have a large pleco in there as well as a large SAE. From my reading it could be the pleco or CO2 or KNO3. I was not planning on using EI for the tank but I have just added EI (esp KNO3) based on a 210 gallon tank. The subsrtate is ASII (for 1.5 yrs) supplemented with iron bottom long and a multi. Should I catch the d*** pleco?

Andy

 

[andye]

Anyone here?

 

[Biollante]

I Am Confused

Hi,

Yeah, I just do not know what to say. In this kind of situation a picture or compete description helps.

I am unsure of how to answer regarding echinoderms are as far as I know marine critters, I keep some of those as well but either Hypostomus plecostomus or “plecos” of the Loricariichthys should not be kept with them.

I am not sure what kind of “pleco” you mean Hypostomus plecostomus, and then yes they are capable of such damage. If Loricariichthys, then probably not.

If you meant Echinodorus and the rip is in healthy plant tissue of a robust Echinodorus Spp., a large fish is capable of damage. If the Echinodorus is one of the many plants commonly referred to as “Sword plants” then lack of any number of nutrients could be a problem, these also tend to be root feeders so that can be a problem.

Echinodorus Spp. are nutrient hogs and really like iron.

I am willing to help, but you need to help us out a bit.

Biollante

 

[ghostsword]

Hi..

I had an issue with my echinodorus rubin, the leaves were being shreded often. I found out that it were my ancistrus that were munching on it, so after getting rid of it, adding some JBL root balls, and increasing the iron on the water (easy ferro) the plants in less than 3 weeks recovered.

They went from this:

To this: