The Easiest Sword Fight
Amazon Sword plants are one of the original, and best choices for the freshwater planted aquarium. Amazon Swords are not a single species of plant, but rather a group or genus of plants from the genus Echinodorus which belongs to the family Alismataceae. They are native from the central United States and most of South America as well. The genus Echinodorus has 30 species currently. The aquarium has many cultivars of Amazon and other sword plants with a range of sizes and colors. Ranging in size from four to six inches all the way up to over 20 inches, there’s a sword plant for almost every freshwater planted aquarium.
The right aquarium for a sword plant will generally be geared towards planted aquaria. That said they are fairly undemanding and can get away with some standard freshwater aquarium displays with a few pointers that we will go over later. The aquarium should obviously be large enough to hold the Sword that you have chosen, be heated to the mid high 70’s Fahrenheit, have gentle diffuse flow, a finer substrate to make sure that roots don’t get crushed, and a light powerful enough to grow low tech level plants. Amazon Swords can be planted in pots within the aquarium so that the right substrate conditions for them can be achieved without having to change the whole aquarium or be worried about containing substrates if the rest of the aquarium is a coarser grade that you prefer.
Sword plants are generally not picky when it comes to water quality, but in the wild are found in water from neutral to slightly acidic. The best bet for finding plants that will thrive in your aquarium is to acquire local plants via other hobbyists or local fish stores that are growing them in house. These plants have adjusted to the local water and have been flourishing there for generations and should be easy to transition to another aquarium with similar water parameters. Fertilizing the water column isn’t entirely necessary for sword plants, but it can be done.
Sword plants require low to moderate light as far as planted aquariums go, with brighter light potentially leading to brighter colors – some sword plants have red in their coloration, and these can be accentuated under brighter lights. That being said, brighter lit plants will need to have access to more nutrients and potentially co2 gas enrichment to make sure that they can use all the light available to them. If not, the plant might not grow fast enough, and algae will start to grow on the leaves of the plant starving it of the light it needs. Under the right conditions the plant will grow faster than the algae on the leaves and remain clean and healthy.
Planting sword plants is easy. Give the plant a trim of any old leaves and you can trim the roots as well if they are so long that it would be difficult to plant. Planted aquarium substrates should always be at least two inches deep and up to three. Make an indent in the substrate and put the plant in or push it into the substrate using long planting tweezers designed for this purpose. Make sure when planting that the roots are the only thing covered with substrate. The leaves emerge from a crown that grows above the roots and planting this in the substrate will make it harder for the plant to grow new leaves and could even cause the crown to rot, killing the plant. Amazon Swords are heavy root feeding plants and so rather than adding fertilizer to the water column the best approach is to get root tab fertilizers to add directly into the substrate under the roots. Enriched substrates intended for planted aquariums such as mineralized topsoil tanks or other nutrient rich substrates, are also great choices. In bare bottom aquariums or aquariums with larger stones as substrate that would damage roots sword plants can be planted into plastic or ceramic pots. Just fill the pot up with a suitable substrate, add root tabs and plant your sword. If larger fish that like to dig might disturb them, you can place rocks on top of the substrate surrounding the crown of the Sword – but this might not work for larger more active digging cichlids.
Sword plants mostly reproduce via long stems that we call “runners”. These runners emerge from the crown like a regular leaf but extend out lower over the substrate and will start to sprout tiny clones of the adult plant. The adult plant will send nutrients via the runner to the small plant and eventually the smaller plant or plants will begin to form roots that reach down into the substrate. At this point you can add root tabs underneath them buried in the substrate if you do not have an enriched substrate and allow the runner to go away on its own or remove them from the adult plant and plant them with their roots in a new location of your choice. Either way, well maintained Sword plants tend to reproduce rapidly and can relatively quickly fill an aquarium making a dense forest of large plants.
Sword plants are a great choice in taller community aquariums but have a few considerations when considering what types of fauna should be and shouldn’t be included in their display. Swords, for better or worse, are highly desirable for fish that like to eat plants. So, beware of cichlids that are herbivorous, goldfish, and Plecostomus fishes. If these plants are large and healthy enough, they can tolerate some trimming which could be mutually beneficial but watch the circumstance closely, so you don’t end up with a fat fish and no plants! Some things like Otocinclus catfish, freshwater shrimp, and aquarium safe snails can make great choices with Amazon Sword plants and even help by keeping algae off the leaves if that does happen.
Amazon Swords are great candidates for any aquarium tall enough for them to fully grow into. Taller aquariums work better for these plants that can get to be up to two feet tall, with quite a large spread. With good substrate, light, and appropriate tankmates sword plants will grow into a stunning showpiece for any aquarium. Talk to your local fish store about ordering some cleanly cultured sword plants from Aquatropic today!