# Swords are turning yellow and translucent in newish tank



## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

evilgenius said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm not having a good experience with plants in my tanks. My melon swords are starting to turn yellow and translucent. The tank is about two months old. I'm thinking my nitrates may be low at 10 ppm. I put root tabs in my sand substrate when I started the tank and dose with Flurish Excel once a week. Also I'm getting a lot of new growth on my anubis but the they don't seem to grow out and some of the leaves curl inward.
> 
> Any ideas?


Not enough nutrients of some sort. Nitrates don't need to be high, they just need to not be limiting. If I remember correctly your swords were shooting out runners like crazy so those root tabs would have been used up pretty quick. Excel should also be dosed daily as it has a half life of 10 hours or so if i remember correctly.


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## evilgenius (Nov 15, 2017)

That Amazon you helped me identify yesterday seems to be doing ok. I snipped out those daughter plants that had nice root growth and replanted them last night. Thanks! The melon sword in the tank is starting to look quite bad. I'll replace the root tabs under the roots of my plants and keep watch. Thanks!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I have yet to have success growing melon swords in low-medium tech tanks, I just put one in a high tech tank last week and will see how it performs. In the low tech tanks I just couldn't get as much growth as my other swords (amazon, ozelot)


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## evilgenius (Nov 15, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> I have yet to have success growing melon swords in low-medium tech tanks, I just put one in a high tech tank last week and will see how it performs. In the low tech tanks I just couldn't get as much growth as my other swords (amazon, ozelot)


hmmm... suggestions for low tech carpet plants? I've already ordered the narrow leaf chain sword (comes next week) which countless people say should grow in almost anything.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I have had success with micro chain sword in medium light, medium tech I guess. It took over half a 30 gal long. sagittaria subulata would work also. I'll attach a pic of my 65 gallon from 6 years ago with a sagittaria subulata carpet.


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## evilgenius (Nov 15, 2017)

Nice looking tank! I'll try to keep these things alive! I'm not yet ready for a big CO2 system yet, but someday soon maybe. I've been thinking instead of trying to uproot everything in the 30gal I may just wait until next summer/fall and try setting up a med tech 20 gal tank (with soil) and once that's going great then re-work the 30 gal.


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