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swords dying. minimum level of NO3 neccasary?



Hi all,
I posted about this a while ago and am still wondering.......
I can't grow swords!!!!!
My tank is a 4 foot x18x18 65 gallons, 4 tubes (2.5 w/gallon) CO2.
The tank is 5 months old with an unvacuumed 3 inch layer of  gravel
duplarit and deritrius
Plants grow relatively slowly (compared to what I have heard) but pearl
(even fast growers) I put this down to  lack of N, however I dont want to
increase fish load as I have some hair algae anyway (otherwise the tank is
algae free!
NO3 is always 0, so is PO4 phosphate, i use half dose of flourish and flora
pride.
I put the hair algae down to the extra iron from the 2 fertilizer sups so i
stopped using them a couple of weeks ago.
(there are 30 tetras, 2 gouramis 10cm, 4 small SAE's 1 small CAE.) (about
1'' per gallon of fish)
My problem is that I can't grow amazon swords!
I have tried no less then 4 different common swords all appeared young and
healthy on purchase. I plant them with the crown exposed and then they die
over a few weeks.

( I planted a small waterspite plant and it has grown like mad) could this
use up nutrients before other plants get their share?)

What am I doing wrong ? do these plants need higher N levels then other
common plants? I notice they are often used in highly nutritious cichlid
aquariums where the seem to grow well under apparently terrible conditions.
I Saw a tank with 70 watts of fluro on a 120 gallon with many cichlids and
massive healthy swords!
How would I go about increasing the N if this is the problem seeing as KNO3
is unavailable due to strict govt controls. ( I guess, since people use it
in bombs.)

If anyone could give me some help/advice/ideas that wiould be great.

Daniel Green
bevgreen at cygnus_uwa.edu.au