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Who or what is causing these holes?

2K views 4 replies 2 participants last post by  aunt kymmie 
#1 ·
Please excuse the poor photo quality. Does anyone know what is causing the holes on the leaves of this sword? Most of my sword leaves have these holes but the other plants in the tank are not affected. In the tank are loaches, barbs, otos, rams, SAE, an ABN and a pictus. Is someone munching on these leaves? Thanks!


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#2 ·
Kym, I'm fairly certain this is a nutrient issue. Do you use a liquid fertilizer regularly (please detail if you do)? Any substrate nutrients (additives, tablets...)? And what type, strength and duration of light?

I've had similar problems, swords are heavy feeders and can waste away when other plants are thriving. I judge my tank's plant health by the swords. Anyway, with afore-mentioned info I should have some help hopefully.

Byron.

P.S. What's an ABN, I've forgotten this anogram?
 
#3 · (Edited)
ABN= Albino Bristlenose :)

I had a problem with BBA awhile back and solved it by doing the following:

Adding a pair of SAE's
Spot treating with Flourish Excel daily (1 1/2 times recommended dosage)
Dosing with potassium 3 x a week
Flourish 1 x a week
Flourish root tabs monthly (each sword gets one under the roots)

Lighting on the tank is CF full spectrum 6700K @ 260 watts.
Currently I'm using just 130 of the 260 watts available and lights are on a 12 hour schedule.
The BBA is gone and is no longer a concern.

Perhaps once the BBA was gone I should have changed my dosing routine?
What should I experiment with changing??

Thanks!
Kym

PS. This tank gets a weekly 50% water change.
 
#4 ·
From your information, I suspect the potassium. You might try a couple more partial water changes over a period of a few days. I would maintain everything else as always, the aim being to get them back to the regular schedule and balance of light/nutrients.

The bad leaaves will probably die, but new growth should start to appear after a few days once the offender is sufficiently diluted or gone altogether.

I recently used Maracyn to deal with columnaris, and only one round of three alternate day treatments, then a 50% pwc. About two weeks after, I noticed the pygmy chain swords literally began disintegrating into nothing, and the red leaved swords did much the same. The green leaved larger swords seemed much less affected. The Brazilian Pennywort was also affected by producing much smaller leaves and much further apart on the stems and more yellow than green, just the growth during those two weeks. Now after another two weeks, most things are coming back. I am certain it was the Maracyn; if you followed another thread on here, the same thing happened to that aquarist with maracyn to treat that algae-like bacteria (sorry, mind is going again, forgot the name).

This is the danger using any treatments, but of course we sometimes need to resort to such measures. I've had swords on the brink from things before and they have the knack of bouncing back because the roots remain good and are strong. Good luck.
 
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