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Is 3 watts per gallon enough wattage for sword plants? I have a 55gal. community tank with plants allready in it. The only thing that is perling is the beard algae, it is everywhere.

Yes, definitely. I have different swords growing and doing well at under 2wpg. Just make sure they're not completely shaded by other plants.

Last edited by upikabu at 21-Oct-2005 00:30

-P

lowlight,

Given your wattage, you should rename yourself to highlight

Yes, you can grow pretty much all plants in this light.

Do you have CO2 injection?

What are your tank parameters?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Go to http://www.tropica.com to research particular varieties of swordplants (echinodorus) for their light, temperature and water preferences.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Thanks for the replies. I use to have 0.6 watts per gallon, hence the name lowlight. I will have to get more plants (swords) to add veriety to the tank. BOB, thanks for the link I will definetly be looking into research before I buy. Tank perameters are good, just the ph is a little higher than I would like (7.6-8.0).

Last edited by lowlight at 22-Oct-2005 15:30

I've got 2 wpg (22" deep tank). I have two red swords, no co2 (just add leaf zone each week) One of them has tripled it's leaves in 6 weeks, the other has double it's leave in 4 weeks. I just did a replant yesterday, I'll post some new pics once everything clears up.

James

oh yeah...indeed...u can put almost all plants in there (except of course those lowlight plants now.. duh!] )...enjoy ur swords

I got 2 swords yesterday and a melon sword root. I say root because there are no leaves or anything, I only payed $2.00 for the melon so I will see what happens. I don't use co2 or furts since I have fish and there are plenty of nutriants in the water and gravel.(The algae lets me know that. LOL) Need to do water changes more often.

Here's some updated pics after my attempt at "redecorating"...

http://community.webshots.com/album/459553078ENNLOA

You can see how much the swords have grown in 6 weeks without much effort at all.

James

The crazy thing about most swords are that they start growing them out of water which gives you roundish leaves. Once you get them in th water the round guys die off and start the longer sword like leaves. Most people at this point think they are done and throw them out. I personaly trim off the deing guys so the plant doesn't have to put energy into them. Something that I use quite a bit of is Flurish Exell. It is basicly a liquid carbon for the plants. This is good to use if you are not running Co2. My swords really like it. I have stoped using it the past month being I don't have cash to buy some and my sword is not doing nearly as good as it was.

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