Pygmy Chain Sword Question

Nemo the Clownfish

Is my pcs (see title) tired of being on the road? I planted him no problem - 1 yellow leaf - and then I decided he should be more to the front (wish I had thought of that first!) so I replanted him and now there are a lot of brown and yellow leaves - some green left.

It looks like a sunflower, about 3 inches across (diameter). For anyone who has experienced this leaf behavior, can you tell me if you think he'll come back?

Thanks a lot. I've wanted one for a long time and I finally got it - probably not the one I was looking for that I had one time, but nonetheless... I have two little baby plants branched out but probably too small to cut off. They're fine.

eug

I've had his happen - when you first bought it, it probably had emersed leaves, and once you submerge it in your aquarium it starts growing new submerged leaves and the emersed leaves die off gradually. The submerged leaves are thinner, more delicate looking than the emersed ones.

Nemo the Clownfish

I don't think the leaves were emersed, eug. IMHO, some plants just aren't confortable with being uprooted and moved around. They come back once they have gotten a little more comfortable with thier new "place."

This plant is really reacting radically, though. I mean it still looks green enough to be alive, but that's about it.

Thanks for writing.

Geomancer

What he says is true though.

Do the leaves have an arrow head shape? Slender stem that is broad at the end. That's the emersed form.

The submerged leaves are pretty much the same thickness from crown to tip, with just the tip itself tapering off to a point.

Another little 'test' is if out of water, emersed form leaves will stay upright. While submerged leaves flop down over your hands because they can't stay up on their own (they have to be under water to stay up).

The vast majority of these plants are grown in hydroponics and thus come in little plastic pots wrapped in rock wool. LFS may put them in their tanks for sale, but doesn't mean they were grown that way.

Nemo the Clownfish

Eh, no, no arrowhead shaped leaves. The leaves are long and thin, about 2 mm wide. It did come in a little green basket. The second description of the leaves - submerged - sounds like my leaves. All the leaves look the same, so they probably were either submersed or emersed but not both. I'm just worried that this one is going to die on me and I'll never find another one.

Thanks

eug

somebody posted pictures of "dying" Pygmy chain sword, and the leaves were identified as emersed growth:



Do they look like that?

Ignore the big-leafed plant at the back, I'm talking about the short plant at the front. Emersed growth and submersed growth look pretty similar, not as dramatic a difference as say Amazon Sword.

eug

In the name of throughness, and since I happened to accidentally tear off a new leaf off a pygmy sword, I took a photo of it, along with an old emersed leaf:

New submersed growth:


Old emersed growth:


I do apologize for the huge size of the second pic, I couldn't manage to shrink it down in imgur for some reason. You can see how the emersed leaf grows widest relatively near to the tip, whereas the submersed growth is overall thinner proportionally, and grows widest near the middle of the leaf's length.

Nemo the Clownfish

Eug,

Thank you very much for the pics. I really appreciate your efforts to put me at ease.

I just don't know. If I had to bet I would say all the leaves were submersed, but I might lose my money. I'll see if I can post a pic of the plant and see what you think, but today is my water change day, etc. Won't take all day.

See you

Just looked at the plant. The green leaves have a typical sword leaf shape, scaled to the size of the plant. I don't know...

Byron

What other members have posted is very true, but I'm just going to add that even if the plant had submersed leaves when you acquired it, it will often lose them when moved into a new environment. I've had this moving these plants from one tank to another. Just a slight difference in environment can affect them. And, it is also true that plants do not like being moved, and this can vary too.

Nutrients may be a factor. What is the GH? And what if any fertilizers? And light...what is over the tank?

Byron.

Nemo the Clownfish

GH=5, NO3=0, tried 1 dose of Flourish Complete yesterday. Looks a little better today, but I doubt it's because of the Flourish. I think that light and moving syndrome may be factors. Thanks for the help - I also read your writeup on Pygmy chain sword plant.