KrazyKarl
01-06-2005, 2:35 PM
When you visit pet stores they usually have the plants with the pots and the loose plants. My question is if i wanted to put the loose plants into pots which i have a bunch of what is that cotton like material that holds the plant in the pot? Also is it benficial to use the pots? I am not goin for an entirely planted aquarium instead just a few live plants to add to the aquascaping. Also recently I have purchased a number of plants and it seems like the other three variaties have adapted well but the amazon swords began to die, the leaves seemed to become almost translucent. Any ideas why?
Timmain42
01-06-2005, 2:39 PM
Ditch the pots and the cotton (rockwool). Pots only hold the plants back and depending on how the plant was grown, rockwool can hold fertilizers not necessary for underwater growth.
Without more specific information about your tank, it will be hard to determine what issue your sword plants are experiencing. IMO, it sounds like a lack of fertilization.
ringram
01-06-2005, 5:51 PM
Well, to start, the rock wool in the pots is only meant to be temporary. When the supplier gets these plants ready to ship to your LFS, they load up the rock wool with fertilizer(probably overdoing it) only meant to supplement the plant for a short time (long enough for the LFS to sell it) --- on a side note, if you've ever noticed the LFS planted tanks, most of them are atrocious and that's because all this overabundance of fertilizer causes algae outbreaks like crazy. Anyway, in your situation, I would still not keep them in the pots. Plant them directly into the substrate and get your hands on something like sand, fluorite and (more for the swords) put a root tab or some kind of fertilizer into the substrate, right at the root, since swords are heavy root feeders. If you're getting discoloration, that's probably what it is. Hope this helps...