One of the easiest freshwater aquarium plants to grow and maintain is the Echinodorus bleheri compacta , better have sex as the Amazon sword plant . The " compacta " part of the name point that this plant is well suited for small aquariums , since it only develop to be about 6 inches tall . Some of its relatives , very interchangeable in appearance , grow to be as much as 20 to 24 inches improbable . These lovely decorative plants can usually be purchase bareroot or pot from any tropical fish supplier . Install your plant in its newfangled plate as shortly as potential .
Step 1
cut back any discredited or yellowing leaves from your E. bleheri with clean , sharp scissors . slay any discolored root that are not perfectly bright snowy . Snip off the tips of all of the healthy white roots . The plant will before long reply with rapid , healthy increase . Look the specimen over , and plunk off and destroy snails or snail egg if you witness any .
Step 2
select a featured spot in your aquarium to show off this attractive works . Unless the tank is under 10 gallons , the foreground is sodding for highlighting it .
Step 3
Dig a hole in the substratum deep and broad enough to accommodate the bareroot specimen ’s roots . If the flora has been buy pot , you may leave it that elbow room . Just dig out a hole prominent enough to lay to rest the pot in .
Step 4
Position the E. bleheri in the fix with one hand , while gently pack substrate over and around its roots .
Step 5
allow for your Amazon sword plants with about 12 time of day of abstemious daily . More than that will actually slow down their growth , as well as promote the development of extravagant amounts of algae growth in your tank car .
Step 6
tot some alga eat half-pint , Siamese alga eat sharks , or Otocinclus algae eaters if algae get to accumulate on your Amazon sword plant . You wo n’t be able to remove it manually , and these animal will clean house the plant of algae while doing it no harm . Do not choose for add a common plecostomus , which will strip the masking from E. Bleheri ’s leaf .
Warning
Do n’t plant Amazon steel plants in aquariums housing apple snails , Columbian ramshorn escargot , or silver dollar Pisces . These will all devour the plants right down to the roots . with child cichlids will keep them uprooted and often shred the leave . Turtles and crustaceans are very destructive to all aquarium plants . Angelfish love to spawn in E. bleheri but tend to trash the plant while they ’re at it .
