My amazon swordtail has started disintegrating. It is as though the flesh
between its veins is falling away. So the leaves and the "veins" are still
there, but it is a skeleton of a plant. All the green filling in the leaves
has been disappearing.

I have had this plant for about 9 months and it has been doing really well
until about a month ago. Now this disease (?) has spread to one of my java
ferns
too. Can anyone tell me what might be wrong with it? I don't think this
was done by a fish (doesn't look eaten) and I have not seen any snails in
the tank.

I hadn't fed the plant in a few weeks so I gave it some food but this does
not seem to
have helped. It is steadily getting worse. I fed it two Fritz Pond
Fertilizer tablets (guy in the LFS recommended them) and some Tetra
Florapride. I consistently do 25-30% water changes every two weeks. Last
time I did a water change I made sure to vacuum the substrate around it
thoroughly, to make sure the roots weren't suffocating.

The lighting is only a 30watt in a 46 gallon tank, which I know isn't much,
but has supported slow growth among all the plants since I set up the tank
last September. The leaves aren't yellow or rotting, just disintegrating
from losing their flesh.

I fear it will be entirely disintegrated soon. The fish all seem to be
doing fine. Until the java fern recently was stricken, the other plants
were doing fine too. Could it be temperature? It has recently gotten
warmer (I live in a warm climate and during the day it gets up to 83 degrees
F in the house). The tank is usually 80-81 degrees F and a couple months
ago during the "winter" it was 77-79 degrees.

I have been so happy with the growth and beauty of this plant until this
calamity. Any help would be much appreciated!

(I tried attaching a picture because that would work much better than my
verbal description, but it seems this ng won't let me)

Evergreen (yes, very ironic handle in this case)

Well, not a guru answer, but my swords took a beating around 6months after I
got them, turned yellow brown, got to looking like skeletons like you
mentioned, and I was told by LeighMo, that it's virtually normal for the
first set of leaves to diminish because they were probably grown 'out' of
water before you got them, and now they are going to grow 'in' water, so
they are losing their immersed leaves, and growing submersed leaves....

as for ferts, I only use flourish tabs.... love 'em now....


My amazon swordtail has started disintegrating. It is as though the flesh
between its veins is falling away. So the leaves and the "veins" are
still
there, but it is a skeleton of a plant. All the green filling in the
leaves
has been disappearing.

I have had this plant for about 9 months and it has been doing really well
until about a month ago. Now this disease (?) has spread to one of my
java
ferns
too. Can anyone tell me what might be wrong with it? I don't think this
was done by a fish (doesn't look eaten) and I have not seen any snails in
the tank.

I hadn't fed the plant in a few weeks so I gave it some food but this does
not seem to
have helped. It is steadily getting worse. I fed it two Fritz Pond
Fertilizer tablets (guy in the LFS recommended them) and some Tetra
Florapride. I consistently do 25-30% water changes every two weeks. Last
time I did a water change I made sure to vacuum the substrate around it
thoroughly, to make sure the roots weren't suffocating.

The lighting is only a 30watt in a 46 gallon tank, which I know isn't
much,
but has supported slow growth among all the plants since I set up the tank
last September. The leaves aren't yellow or rotting, just disintegrating
from losing their flesh.

I fear it will be entirely disintegrated soon. The fish all seem to be
doing fine. Until the java fern recently was stricken, the other plants
were doing fine too. Could it be temperature? It has recently gotten
warmer (I live in a warm climate and during the day it gets up to 83
degrees
F in the house). The tank is usually 80-81 degrees F and a couple months
ago during the "winter" it was 77-79 degrees.

I have been so happy with the growth and beauty of this plant until this
calamity. Any help would be much appreciated!

(I tried attaching a picture because that would work much better than my
verbal description, but it seems this ng won't let me)

Evergreen (yes, very ironic handle in this case)

Okay. I hope you are right. What concerns me is that a couple java ferns
now seem to be having the same problem. I trimmed some of the dead leaves
last night when I did a water change, so I guess now I just sit back and
hope.



"RedForeman" wrote in message
...
Well, not a guru answer, but my swords took a beating around 6months after
I
got them, turned yellow brown, got to looking like skeletons like you
mentioned, and I was told by LeighMo, that it's virtually normal for the
first set of leaves to diminish because they were probably grown 'out' of
water before you got them, and now they are going to grow 'in' water, so
they are losing their immersed leaves, and growing submersed leaves....

as for ferts, I only use flourish tabs.... love 'em now....