Sword plants.

[Mettle]

What's the key to growing these things? Is it the substrate? It's one of two plants I've been having issues with, along with madagascar lace which requires said nutrient rich substrate.

What's good for that? Peat? Laterite? Combo of both? I want these bad boys to grow grow grow. And I want them to grow only partially underwater. From my understanding they're a bog plant and grow up and out of water... So that's what I'm trying right now. I have the roots underwater and embedded in fine gravel mixed with a bit of laterite. We'll see how they are tomorrow night when I get home from work... The reason I'm doing this is because I eventually wanted them to go in my turtle vivarium.

Expensive experiment, but we'll see how it turns out.

[BigDaddy]

Actually, almost every "aquarium plant" is actually a bog plant... just that during the rainy season, they actually survive in a completely submerged state.  That's why most plants won't flower underwater... they are used to flowering when emersed, not submersed.

Swords need two things.... light and ferts.  Preferably ferts right at the roots.  Laterite is okay as an iron supplement... but you still need to put a root tab at the base of the plant.  That way, the sword gets all its macros (NPK for example) with little effort.

Don't skimp on the lighting.  If you want good strong emersed growth, you need good lighting (don't forget, in nature we are talking about direct sunlight for 12 hours a day when emersed).

Hope this helps.

[Mettle]

I'll pick up some root tabs tomorrow. And right now I have them sitting by the front window that gets a ton of light. Hopefully that'll help 'em a little bit. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks.

[NjOyRiD]

how long does a root tab last?

[BigDaddy]

About 3 months

[charlie]

Big Daddy, which root tab do you recomend & how much wpg of lights for a 55 gln approx 48 long/widex12 deepx20 high.
Regards

[BigDaddy]

Well, I know of people that make their own root tabs.

I, myself, use the root tabs make by Seachem.  Very happy with them.

Growing swords in a standard 4 foot 55 gallon tank, I'd recommend at least a hundred watts of lighting, preferably slighting more.

A couple of ways of going about that.

1)  A standard 2 x 65 watt Coralife freshwater lighting fixture ($$$)

2)  Two dual four foot strip lights mounted with F32T8 bulbs (4 bulbs total for 128 watts total)