"D&M" wrote in message ...
I have a few swords that I bought quite a while back, nicely large leafed,
etc. The shouts have sprouted off, and I've snipped months ago, but they're
growing different to the parent plants. They're more shrubby. One plant has
20-30 leaves and only 4" high. Do I have to prune leaves to get the others
to grow larger? I use a standard aquarium .15-0-0 enriched fertilizer. (BTW,
how often is a person supposed to add the fertilizer?)

Your 15-0-0 provides potassium and, I suppose, iron and trace elements. Depending on
fish load you might need to supplement nitrates also. For an amazon sword this might
be furnished in the form of root spikes, such as Jobe's for palms and ferns (16-2-6),
which will also provide some more potassium (16%) and even some phosphates (2%).

You need to add enough fertilizer to get 0.1ppm of iron in the water column, or nor
much more. But you might not be getting enough potassium that way. That's another
reason for the root spikes.

But really these recommendations might be way off. What is your tank size? What is
the lighting wattage? What are the other plants? What sort of substrate is in there?
What is the fish load? I don't suppose you are injecting CO2?

Also, how much light do they need? I currently give them 6-10 hours
power-glo lighting, 6 or so hours darkness, the rest of lighting comes from
indirect sunlight, ambiant from room lighting.

Thanks.