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Re:Cordifolius not growing



On Fri, Feb 21, 1997 12:51 PM, Paul Krombholz
<mailto:krombhol at felix_teclink.net> wrote: 
>The long petioles and small leaves are almost certainly symptoms of
>insufficient light.  Most, if not all swords require an open, unshaded
>area.  This is especially true for cordifolius, which is less adapted to
>submerse conditions than many of the other medium to large swords.  Of
>course, when you give it what it wants, cordifolius sooner or later starts
>producing large emersed leaves and you have to whack it back to discourage
>it from pushing off the tank cover.
>
>Since you report that crypts are doing well in that tank, I am wondering
if
>your cordifolius is showing any nutrient deficiency symptoms.  Are the
>older leaves turning yellow and dying from the edges inward?  I suspect
>that crypts can compete for nutrients better than swords, because I have
>had a tank where crypts were looking good, but the sword (amazonicus) was
>seriously deficient.  When I really pushed nutrients, the sword greened
up,
>stopped losing its older leaves, and started producing much larger leaves.

	With 120w of pretty good quality light over a 30gal tank, I doubt that's
the problem. (To note, I do plan to upgrade to 4 Ultra TriLux in the next
month or so, regardless of how well 99% of the plants are doing -- the
bulbs _are_ over 2 years old!)
	Your description of the condition of the leaves is dead-on, though --
dying from the outside, in.  I guess I'm gonna have to pick up a
non-Fe-oriented supplement to better feed the E cord.  Tetra FloraPride,
SeaChem Flourish or the Kent Marine supplement should do well in this
capacity shoudn't they? That's all I have local access to, so I hope so.
:-)

	Thanks for the info!

						-Matt McCabe/Columbus, OH