01-22-2013, 05:57 PM
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#12 |
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Originally Posted by funkman262  Honestly, an Amazon Sword may grow too large for that size tank and overshadow any nearby plants. I had started out wit a single 6" plant in my 90g tank, replanted a couple of the plantlets that grew off of that one, and they each grew nearly 2' tall to the top of the tank. I ended up having to remove two of them and just keeping the original. I was constantly having to pull out plantlets. Here's a couple runners with probably 20 plantlets growing off of it that grew to six inches or so before I pulled it out of the tank: Attachment 74732
And the whole tank with two of them still in there: Attachment 74733 | This is very true--and yes, that is a lovely aquascape. 
The common sword can grow quite differently depending upon conditions. According to Rataj's 2004 classification of the species, E. amazonicus remains smaller, while E. bleherae is larger. I have the latter in my 115g and 90g (the latter are adventitious plants from the former] and what was sold to me as E. amazonicus in the 70g. These have certainly remained smaller overall, for about 4 years now. And they are not growing at all well compared to the others. But the fact is that this is the exact same species.
This was proposed back in 1994 but no one paid much attention; more recently Samuli Lehtonen has confirmed by DNA analysis that E. Bleherae, E. amazonicus, E. parviflorus and E. greisbachii are in fact not distinct species but one and the same species, and E. greisbachii gets the nod for the name. I go into this a bit more and provide references in the profile [ Echinodorus bleherae] if anyone is interested. But the point of all this is that conditions do seem to play a major part in the growth habit of these plants, particularly if they are one species.
Byron.
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I like the Echinodorus and Helanthium (the "sword" plants) a lot because they are so easy, do well almost anywhere, moderate light, and lovely green.
