Pruning Plants and Dead Leaves

[LJP]

I have a couple new plants and I just started my first planted tank a couple months ago and my amazon sword has gotten quite big and I was wondering how I would go about pruning some of my plants and there dead leaves.

 

[fish 321]

I have a couple new plants and I just started my first planted tank a couple months ago and my amazon sword has gotten quite big and I was wondering how I would go about pruning some of my plants and there dead leaves.

I just used scissors for my sword, you can cut live leaves off too and it will cause no harm to the plant.

 

[altwitch]

I have both a short and a long pair of aquarium safe stainless steel scissors that I got at LFS way back. You can do it during a water change to lower the level if lower growing plants but for stem plants I actually find that makes things worse when they fall over in the water.

Stem plants and grasses are the easiest - just trim them to desired height and you can replant the clipping and grow new plants. For lower growing plants with spade shaped leaves and the like you can always clip off any dead growth at the base of that leaf's stem and remove. For some plants like star grass and similar I find it easiest to remove them from the tank to make clipping where I want to easier and I often discard some of the plant matter and select the specimens that look most healthy. Swords tend to get dense rather than tall based on shape so may want to just snip off some clusters of leaves to create swim-through space but nothing saying you need to. Most fish will weave their way through planted areas of a tank no problem.