Amazon Swords looking bad

[jschristian44]

I woke up this morning to look at my Amazon Swords. The leaves on a lot more of them are brown/yellow. I don't know what I am doing wrong. I have a tropical sun light bulb lighting them, and the roots are buried in eco-complete substrate. I have the leaves resting on top of the water and the roots inside a plastic cup submerged in the water. What could be teh problem? My ph is probably around 8. I know thats high and I want to get it down, but I don't want to use liquids to do that. I thought plants were supposed to lower the pH? And Stephen don't worry I still have many good leaves on my Amazon's, so I will send you those.

[Oldfishlady]

Your pH is fine.....

If these are new sword plants you may be seeing normal die off of emersed leaves...often plants are grown in the nursery with the leaves out of the water and the roots under water....most plants have two different leaves-the ones that live out of the water (emersed) and the ones that live under water (submersed) removed the spent leaves and soon you should start to see new submersed growth...also make sure the crown of the plant is above the substrate a little.......when I plant my rosette plants I cram the roots in the soil and then give them a little tug to pull the crown just above the substrate......

How long are the lights on?

[jschristian44]

yeah i think it was the subsrate i buried the complete bottom in it so they stems werent getting water. i now fixed it. what is the crown?

[Oldfishlady]

The area between the root and where the leaves come out or the base of the leaves...its better to plant them too shallow than too deep....

[jschristian44]

yep i found that out, they are already looking better i think.