Swordtail leaves growing in red-veined

Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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Hi guys,
I'm wondering if anyone can tell me whether or not this is cause for concern. I got an Amazon sword (which turned out to be four small plants wrapped together) a few weeks ago. They seem to have settled in nicely, putting out roots and new leaves. Some of the older leaves look a little beaten up, but they're what I would expect to see - solid green. The new growth looks completely different - a slightly lighter green with red veins. I've seen pictures of swords with red spots, but this is different, and I'm not sure it's a good thing (my Hygro and Ambulia show rusty red colouration in the new growth when the ferts get low, so I'm hoping the swords aren't issuing a cry for help!)
You can click on my signature to see all my specs if you need them. I'll try to get a picture of the leaves up this afternoon.
Thanks for your thoughts :D
 
Is it Kleiner Bar? (little bear, translated) - That one has red new growth and stays small in tanks, whether it holds its red depends on the conditions, mine tend to green up as the leaves mature, but they are under only 2W/gal and little supplements. Under brighter conditions and more attention it will hold better color I hear.

Lots of larger swords have red to redish new growth.
 
It was sold as Echinodorus bleheri (paniculatus) - I found an article
on aquarticles.com that describes the plant, and what I've got matches the description. (There's a picture of my tank on my specs page, you can see the general shape and size of the swords, but no details). The article does say the small veins can be anywhere from green to brown, but doesn't indicate what makes them one colour over the other. The leaves on my plants are also growing in longer and thinner than the original leaves, which are almost oval. Most of the plants I've purchased from Big Al's have changed in some way after living in my tank, so I'm not surprised. I guess it's nothing to worry about. Thanks for the reply :)
 
Swords are raised commercially emerse, the plastic slotted pots in circulating hydroponic solution, the tops in very high humidty emerse growth in order to minimize algae on the foliage. Swords in the wild grow in both forms - during flood they drop the emerse foliage and grow thinner, longer leaves - less thick also. Out of flood they have thicker, more rounded leaves and tend to flower. Part of tank adaptation is dropping the emerse leaves and developing the submerse form. Full normal. Red in that species may indicate low nitrogen, but it also may just be stress of transition - even if the ID is fully correct.
 
Thanks :)
The low nitrogen makes sense - I do have trouble keeping the NO3 up. I was dosing ferts every 48 hours but the plants seem to be able to take the NO3 from 10ppm to zero in less than two days, so I've started adding the fertilizer mix daily. I'll celebrate the day I find the perfect dosing mix and frequency; this hobby is one GIANT learning curve! :D
 
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