Bushynoses and Swords
A few years ago, I placed several Ancistrus temminckii in my largest (150-gallon) aquarium. This is a very busy, well-stocked community tank, and I was reasonably sure that the Ancistrus would not be comfortable breeding in this aquarium. For several years, that was the case, and my swords were lovely.
Recently, however, the Ancistrus began to breed explosively. I now have a population with dozens of Ancistrus of all sizes in the tank. The Ancistrus (a.k.a. bushynose pleco, bushynose catfish, bristlenose catfish) is a dwarf Loricaridae that matures to a length of about 4 to 6 inches. It generally does not eat plants but is very effective at scrubbing algae off many kinds of surfaces, including plant leaves and driftwood. It grazes on driftwood (many Loricaridae actually need some wood in their diet). The daily algae consumption of one Ancistrus easily is more than that of a dozen tiny and cute Otocinclus in a month. With one or two in your aquarium, their gentle grazing on plants generally is not a problem; it takes a lot of grazing by Ancistrus before the leaves of, for example, E. bleheri show any signs of wear. Wear usually shows only on older leaves that need to be pruned, anyway.
I recommend Ancistrus if you are looking for an effective anti-algae fish. But if you have both a male and female, watch out for their propensity to breed like bunnies. Former Aquarium Fish Intl. plant columnist Karen Randall reminded me recently that the Farlowella acus can be a helpful Loricaridae, and it does not breed so easily. This stick-thin fish can grow to about 9 inches and needs a vegetable diet. So, a small tank will provide enough room or algae. Their diet can be supplemented algae wafers or blanched zucchini. Some "plecos" will eat your aquarium plants outright, and some, including dwarves like the Pekoltia and the zebra (Hypancistrus zebra) actually prefer a meaty diet and so are not very good at consuming algae. Many Loricaridae can get very large, eventually a foot or longer, and just one can be more damaging to plants than several Ancistrus.
If you have a large Ancistrus population and the grazing wears thin, the recourse is to put in some bottle traps and remove the Ancistrus. If I favored Ancistrus more than the plants, I would not have to remove them, but remove them I will; for among my favorite aquatic plants are the swords, plants of the genus Echinodorus, the kind of plants that the little raspers affect most.
The different Echinodorus provide a variety of shades of green and some spectacular red colorings, too. Many hybrids exist that combine several desirable features in one plant. For example, E. "Orientale" offers a delicate rose tone and E. "Kleiner bar" is a small sword bearing a ruddy burnt sienna. Most of the Echinodorus grow too large for very small aquaria. However, in an aquarium without any added carbon dioxide (CO2), some of the larger species, like E. bleheri and "ozelot," will grow slowly and remain small for many months, helped with vigorous pruning of the outer leaves. The best way to prune a sword is to peel and pull an outer leaf as close to the base as possible.
The most commonly available and perhaps easiest to grow of the swords is E. bleheri. This is a beautiful medium green plant with long spearhead shaped leaves and very small petioles when grown submerged. For red color, the E. "ozelot" has a mix of red and green, and the red is especially intense on the younger leaves and under bright light. Under optimum conditions (good light, added CO2 and plenty of nutrients), either of these can grow to about 8 to 16 inches in length. Another easy to grow Echinodorus is the hybrid "Rubin," however the Rubin, like the cordifolius, can easily grow to 20 inches or more and become the centerpiece, endpiece and frontpiece of your aquarium all at the same time - they get very big. Vigorous pruning can help retard their growth, but they seem determined to be big plants. The Rubin is a beautiful red sword.
At the other end of the spectrum, the E. parviflorus "Tropica" grows to only about 6 inches if given plenty of light (e.g., more than 2 watts per gallon of high-quality fluorescent lighting) and stays much smaller under less light. It is a sword suitable for the foreground in many aquascapes.
The species angustofolius has an appearance like long grass. It can grow up to a foot tall under good light but will tend to remain much shorter under less light. It spreads rapidly by runners, and you have to clip and remove, or relocate, the runners to control the spread of the plant.
Q. I currently have a 75-gallon freshwater tank with fish and plants. Most of my plants have done well, with the exception of swords. Any freshly planted sword or new growth will, within a matter of days, begin to lose color, except for the edge of the leaves and stems. The leaf will eventually disintegrate leaving a "lacy" yellow/brown fragment of the leaf. New growth does continue to emerge from the center only to have the same thing happen.
One of the individuals at my local aquarium store suggested that because I have two plecos and a few algae-eaters in the tank that the algae-eaters are destroying the swords. I'm having difficulty with that explanation, though the algae-eaters do spend time on the plants.
I do like swords and would like to have more success with them. I currently have both a dwarf and a taller variety (12 inches) of sword in the tank.
-- John Staschak
Youngstown, N.Y.
A. Various species of plecos (genus Loricaridae) will graze on the algae trying to grow on leaves, and some will even gnaw on the plants. In the former case, too much grazing can wear down the leaves. In the latter case, leaf damage is inevitable. It depends on the type, number and size of Loricaridae you have.
"Algae-eaters," if they are Gyrinocheilus aymonieri, are effective at removing some types of algae when they are young, but when mature, they tend to prefer the slime coat on other fish, and can become unhelpful and unfriendly tenants in a community tank. More likely than the Gyrinocheilus, the Loricaridae are hurting your swords. If no other fast-growing plants in your aquarium are suffering, it is worth trying to remove the Loricaridae from the aquarium.
Lack of nutrients can also cause sword leaves to deteriorate rapidly as they start to grow.
Consider, also, what another reader wrote about problems with swords and my response:
Q. My first planted aquarium is about 2 months old. Lately, I've been having trouble with my Echinodorus barthii and Radican marble queen sword (Echinodorus cordifolius). Some of the leaves have been turning yellow, then falling apart; others have just been coming off (the base of the stem looks brown but the rest of the leaf looks fine). Most of my other plants are doing well, the swords seem to be the ones with the big problem.
I've got a 50-gallon tank. The pH is about 7.2. Temperature is 78 Fahrenheit. Nitrate is 10 ppm, GH 150 ppm, KH 40 ppm and phosphate 1 ppm. I don't have an iron test kit yet. I have three 20-watt fluorescent bulbs rated at 70 lumens. I have a yeast-activated CO2 injection system, and most of the bubbles are absorbed as they pass through the reactor. I just started adding a fertilizer in hopes that might help. I've also been thinking about getting more lights, even though the bulbs have high lumen ratings.
Any suggestions on how to save my swords?
-- Thomas Simpson Hockessin
Delaware
A. It sounds like the rosette, the central base of the plant, is rotting. The plant might have started rotting before or after you got it. If the new leaves are clean all the way to the base and show no signs of deterioration, the plant might recuperate. Your lighting is at the very low end of what the swords might easily tolerate. I would give them at least 1.5 watts per gallon or preferably closer to 2 WPG to maintain the red color in the E. x barthii and growth in the E. cordifolius. That is assuming the reflector is made of mirrorlike polished metal rather than white plastic. If the reflector is plastic, I would aim for about 2 to 2.5 WPG.
The nitrate and phosphate levels are good: one-half to 1 ppm of phosphate and 5 to 10 ppm of nitrate are good levels of those nutrients. However, overfeeding of the fish, especially if you are adding phosphates or nitrates as fertilizer, could lead to excesses of those compounds. If you are adding fertilizers, be sure to keep up on your water changes (50-percent weekly) to ensure that you do not accumulate excess nutrients. Alternatively, you can measure phosphates and nitrates, and do water changes less often but always whenever the phosphate or nitrate levels get too high. If you maintain CO2 levels at about 20 to 30 ppm and have lighting close to 2 wpg, you will probably need to add phosphates and nitrates to maintain the levels of those nutrients. I definitely would add a good trace mix to ensure adequate amounts of micronutrients, including iron. The amount of iron needed will be supplied by the trace mix.
It is interesting that your general hardness (GH or calcium/magnesium content) is so high (150 ppm or about 8.4 degrees), while the carbonate content (KH or alkalinity) is very low (40 ppm or about 2 degrees). At that carbonate level and a pH of 7.2, the CO2 level is only about 4 ppm or roughly what it would be if no CO2 were added. This could be an error in the KH or pH readings, but even assuming a wide margin of error, it still looks like the CO2 level is very low. The swords would benefit greatly from a CO2 level of about 20 to 30 ppm. I would first raise the CO2 levels, then think about adding at least one more bulb. You might need a second CO2 fermentation bottle to increase the CO2 input, or you might need to reduce the rate at which the water sheds CO2 by lessening water surface turbulence. With the low KH you have, there is not much buffering capacity. On the other hand, the high GH indicates that you probably have plenty of calcium. Therefore, I would raise the KH by adding baking soda with water changes. One teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate or NaHCO3) per 10 gallons of water will increase KH by about 4 degrees (71 ppm) and will not increase general hardness. I would raise the KH to about 4 or 5 degrees (70 to 90 ppm), then add CO2 to reach a pH of about 6.6 to 6.8.
If the base of a sword plant is buried in the substrate, the base can rot, especially with newly planted specimens. Plant the specimens so that the very base of the petioles is just at or slightly above the substrate. When you get a sword plant from a store, it has probably been grown at the nursery with the leaves out of the water. This is a faster way to grow sword, but those leaves will eventually be shed by the plant as it grows submerged leaves, which will have much shorter petioles and longer leaves. When you get the plant, cut away about a third of the length of the roots, and peel away about a third of the outer leaves and any leaves that are badly damaged or brown. You can leave one or two long roots on the plant to help hold it in the substrate until new roots take hold. Also, any brown roots are dead, and should be carefully snipped or pulled off. If the plant comes with the roots in rock wool, remove as much of the rock wool as you can, using a pin and/or your fingertips to comb it away carefully without tearing the roots. In my experience, the rock wool tends to promote root rot, especially if any dead roots are in the rock wool. Renowned aquatic plant expert Christel Kasselmann also recommends removing the rock wool. However, I believe her primary concern is that the rock wool fibers, if they get into the water column, can be harmful to the fish gills.
Watts per gallon is not a highly accurate way to assess how much light plants receive, but it is an adequate and handy method. Lumens are actually not as useful. Lumens measure the light to which human vision is sensitive, and we are mostly sensitive to the green band of the spectrum. Thus, a large part of a lumen measurement tends to be in the green range of the light spectrum, which is the range that plants tend to reflect rather than use for photosynthesis. If you use good broad-spectrum (tri-phosphor) fluorescent bulbs, then WPG is useful way to gauge light levels.