Hello,

"LeighMo" wrote in message
It's normal for new leaves to be translucent, but they should darken as
they
mature and get bigger.

Amazon swords like to be fed through their roots, so you might want to
give
them a Flourish tab and a little piece of Jobe's spike once in awhile.

ok. I'll do that and hope it does darken.

my tank is very soft (based on city water info), and alkaline (pH~8
according to my LFS.

That's odd. Soft water is usually acid, hard water is usually alkaline.

I know. We think that the water department is artificially changing just
the pH to preserve the pipeline, or something. Once I get my pH test kits,
I'll be monitoring pH at different time of day/week to see how badly they
fluctuate over the course of the week/day (longer the water sits around in
the pipe, the lower the pH, probably.. so sunday and saturday mornings may
have lower pH while weekday mornings, pH may be high since everybody will
be taking showers and the water doesn't stay stangnat long)...

does alkaline water hurt the swords? I have sof****er fish, so I probably
won't be changing the hardness that it is, but have wondered if I should
buffer it... but if I can get away without buffering (makes water change
more labor intensive) I'd like to opt for that...

linda