BN Ancistrus eating my swords?

[Matt in Houston]

I recently purchased two 3" bristlenose and Im wondering if they may be grazing on my larger sword plants. At first I thought it was a mineral deficiency, the leaves were looking splotchy green and yellow and some have tiny cuts and look very thin almost transparent. My ozelot looks perfect and so do my compacta swords. At night I have seen the BNs on the larger swords grazing on the algae I thought but now Im not so sure.

I feed then sinking pellets at night and they eat them, also a zuccini slice every other day. I thought these ancistrus were good for planted tanks?

In case its something mineral related I started root ferts and leaf zone liquid fert once a week after water change....also started running diy co2 at 34 bubbles per min.

[Mzungu]

How long have you had the swords in there? I am pretty sure the BNs aren't nibbling on them. What other fish do you have in this tank? What kind of lighting and how many watts are you using? Substrate? Any other ferts besides those you mentioned?

Sorry for all the questions, but a little more info might help. :)

[Matt in Houston]

Ive had the swords for about 3 weeks or so, bought from HAW, and they looked great up until a week or so ago which was right around when I bought the BNs.

I have cards, black neons, blue rams, rummynose, brochis cats, 5 quarter sized angels, and the BNs. None of the fish mess with the plants. This is an 85G 5ft long tank.

I pushed in the black flourish tabs last Friday and dosed the leaf zone liq fert that day as well. Substrate is mainly flourite on the ends, middle of tank is driftwood and black almost sand like gravel called odessea sea pearl. Lighting is confined to both ends of the tank, in an area probably 20x12X25tall on each side. The middle of the tank is shady and full of driftwood. Over these two end areas are dayglo t5 ho fixtures, 24w x 2 on each side with polished reflectors and the 6700k ho dayglo bulbs. Im thinking they are basicly giving me around 2 to 2.5 wpg over the ends of the tank.

[Matt in Houston]

Here are some pics of the leaves...some are torn and transparent, others are just splotchy yellow and green. Oh and one of my little blue rams loves the camera, she trys to get into the shots all the time.

I have adjusted the camera to make the shots darker in order to see the damage.

I guess I should just cut off all the old leaves? The smaller new growth doesnt seem to have these problems.

[cichlid1409]

looks like the plecos to me. you can usually tell because the leaves are all thin and holey like that try feeding them algae wafers to keep them off your plants.

[cichlidchic]

umm...check for snails...?? Just a hunch. if not, definitely plecos

[Matt in Houston]

Thanks I will try the algae wafers first...I hope it works but it seems they are very fond of my amazon swords and if they still chew them when I feed them zuccini I have my doubts the wafers will keep them off the leaves.

Major bummer...I like them and they will be hard to get out of the tank.

[kwc1974]

what are you using to fert. with?

[cichlidchic]

i'm not a expert at plants here, but before having to take fish out, could you be over-fertilizing? like chemical burning the plants? that could cause the same effect. i lost a sword when i poured liquid flora-pride in the tank right by the plant rather than diluting it like i usually do.

[kwc1974]

i'm not a expert at plants here, but before having to take fish out, could you be over-fertilizing? like chemical burning the plants? that could cause the same effect. i lost a sword when i poured liquid flora-pride in the tank right by the plant rather than diluting it like i usually do.

I was thinking of under fertilization, but over can cause problems too. Swords require a high iron and it could be having difficency. Try using seachem flourish, flourish iron and flourish potassium. Overdo the dosage a little and the plants should rebound. Although the damaged leaves will have to be trimmed. The plecos do not really hit the plants that hard and damage ussually happens when the plants are first having a problem.

[eklikewhoa]

looks like the plecos to me. you can usually tell because the leaves are all thin and holey like that try feeding them algae wafers to keep them off your plants.

Another worthless post by you with poor info.

)

[eklikewhoa]

The swords look like they have nutrient difficiency.

What may look like the BN's eating the swords is most likely the BN's cleaning off the dead matter on the leaves.

[kwc1974]

The swords look like they have nutrient difficiency.

What may look like the BN's eating the swords is most likely the BN's cleaning off the dead matter on the leaves.

+1 Hit it up like I said above

[eklikewhoa]

Exactly what I would do.

Plus with the BN's that size their sucker mouth should be decent sized and from my experience when they start to eat plants it will show in the similar shape/size/form as their mouth.

[Matt in Houston]

The reason I thought there was something wrong with the plants is because it almost happened over night but it was right around when I bought the BNs and I have seen them on the swords at night....but can they do that much damage so quickly? And that doesn't explain the yellow and green splotchiness on the argentine sword as shown in the pics.

My substrate is flourite and my ozelot and baby amazon sword are doing great...growing about 2-3 leaves per week. My compacta swords are doing good too but I did notice a couple weird leaves last week.

I don't think its over fert because I didn't add any additional ferts until I noticed the problem. After that I added one flourish root tab into the base of each plant and dosed with the liquid leaf zone, once a week now after water change.

I have read online that BNs will eat amazone swords...I did not see this when I researched them before I bought them. I'm just not sure what the heck is going on now but thanks for the replies and keep it coming.