Barth's Sword

Echinodorus barthii

A garden variety of sword plant whose young leaves come up dark red and darken to green with age, so the rosette holds both colours at once.

Light: low
Difficulty: easy
Height: 10 – 30 cm (3.9 – 12 in)
Temperature: 4 – 30 °C (39 – 86 °F)

Leaf colour: green, red
Plant type: rosette
Growth rate: medium
CO₂ demand: low
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 21 °dKH
Placement: midground
Propagation: plantlets on the inflorescence +3 plantlets on the inflorescence, rhizome division, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Broad leaves on a compact rosette 10–30 cm tall; the newest leaves are deep red, older ones dark green. The colour needs light and trace feeding to appear.

Keeping

Easy: dim light is enough to keep it alive, but the red only shows under strong light and with trace elements in the water. A nutritious substrate and carbon dioxide speed it up. Its broad leaves shade whatever is planted beneath, so old outer leaves are worth removing now and then.

Placement

The middle of a large tank as a single specimen. It is a plant to build a layout around rather than one to plant in rows.

Propagation

By young plants on the flower stalk, and by dividing the rhizome of an old plant.

Water conditions match

The water suits 1017 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Zebra Mbuna

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Spined Loach Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Geophagus altifrons Geophagus winemilleri Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Other varieties: Echinodorus × barthii, Echinodorus x barthii

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Echinodorus ''osiris doppelt rot''
Family: Alismataceae

Barth's Sword

Tank conditions

Care and keeping