My plant is dying!

Question
I got a new tank about 2 weeks ago.  I got a bamboo and a sword type plant to start.  The bamboo is doing great and developing new stems.  The other plant is slowly falling apart.  My pH level is at 6.8ish, my Gh is almost at 0 and my Kh is over 280 ppm, the highest reading the test give?  i don't know what wattage the bulb I'm useing is, i was going to look in to one that will work for the 3watts per gallon rule.  But I'm not sure if thats why my plant is dying.  Can the Kh be too high for the plant or could it be something else?  I got a "sucker fish" in ther he's doing good.

Answer
sword type plants are high light plants and require hi lighting to do well. They also need fertilizers to properly grow aswell as co2. Seems you stepped into the planted world a little too fast. To have a successfull planted tank it takes more then just light. They need a lot of time and effort put into them. It seems you just picked a plant that's out of your league, i'd suggest starting with a java fern, java moss, vals. Stuff like that would be best to start. Your sword is dying because you cannot supply what it needs... Your lighting should be around 2.4 (watts per gallon) also they would need co2, also they need proper substrate such as florabase by red sea, eco-complete, or flourite. Your water params seem fine for fish, but the plants need different treatment.


I would also test your KH and GH and PH on your own tap water to get a idea of where the differences are. Reading this over again i cant see your kh being 280 where the norm is 2.5 for planted tanks (ideally)