A Need For More
The goldfish tank was looking pretty lack luster. The only plants inhabiting the tank were java fern attached to driftwood. It looked nice, but the tank was missing some variety, and some tall plants to fill the upper portions of the tank. Julie and I decided the tank could use some sprucing up and we decided on amazon swords, since I had a plethora of them coming from a mother sword in my tropical planted aquarium. The next step was to figure out how to get them in there adequately.
Pot Them!
Our goldfish tank does not have a suitable substrate for plants, it has large river rocks in the bottom. This was a problem. Amazon swords need to have a good substrate to send their large root systems into, to secure them down and to get nutrients. A need fueled an idea . . . Pot Them! We headed out and got three 3" clay pots, making sure they had not been treated with anything. I rinsed them several times in hot water to make sure there wasn't any residue on them that would adversly affect our beloved goldfish. Then I set to work.
Potting The Swords
The first step was to get some gravel and put it in the bottom of the pots. I filled the pots about half way at first. Then went some Flourish Tabs I had left over and I
nestled them into the gravel. I put one tab per pot. Next, another thin layer of gravel over the tabs. By the end of this the pots were almost 3/4 full of gravel.
Then I had to get some plants. We only needed 3, and I had many to choose from. Because we want these to be background plants, I wanted to find the 3 biggest and healthiest looking plantlets. First I cut the runner off of the mother sword and then inspected the plants and picked out the ones to use. I cut those off of the runner. Once they were cut off I trimmed
any damaged roots and then wrapped the roots into a little ball to help keep them from getting damaged during the planting process. I then nestled them into the gravel in their prospective pots and filled the pots up the rest of the way with gravel, to hold the plants up. The end result was 3 nice looking amazon sword plantlets in some nice looking clay pots. 
Once the swords get big, they will be repotted into larger pots. Now hopefully they will grow well provided the goldfish don't eat them!
