# amazon sword plant getting too big



## monk21 (Dec 5, 2012)

So, I have this 75g tank and I have 3 amazon swords in there. One on each side and one near the middle. The middle one is still small. The ones on the side have grown so much that a third of them is already above the water level. Of course it doesnt stay above but rather leans on the side and covers a big chunk of the tank. How can I trim them?

I read some people just cut some of the leaves and throw them away but how would that help me? I would then have 5 very long leaves instead of 10 very long leaves. The problem is not the width but the height.

Thanks


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

monk21 said:


> So, I have this 75g tank and I have 3 amazon swords in there. One on each side and one near the middle. The middle one is still small. The ones on the side have grown so much that a third of them is already above the water level. Of course it doesnt stay above but rather leans on the side and covers a big chunk of the tank. How can I trim them?
> 
> I read some people just cut some of the leaves and throw them away but how would that help me? I would then have 5 very long leaves instead of 10 very long leaves. The problem is not the width but the height.
> 
> Thanks


What other people told you is already correct. You need to cut off the leaves from the base where the stem starts just before the leaf and all the new growth should have much wider leaves. Every time I've cut my sword down I hack the s*** out of it and it just grows back wider and wider.


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## monk21 (Dec 5, 2012)

Yes but do I cut the whole thing? If I cut all the leaves then I will stay without the plant until it grows again (who knows for how long?).if I cut just some leaves then the issue persists as the remaining ones will still be too tall


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

monk21 said:


> Yes but do I cut the whole thing? If I cut all the leaves then I will stay without the plant until it grows again (who knows for how long?).if I cut just some leaves then the issue persists as the remaining ones will still be too tall


You need to cut off all the leaves in which are "too long" as you say. If that is all of them then looks like you need to cut down the entire plant. Amazon swords are big root feeders, whether the leaves are there or not the plant is going to continue growing. Cut all the leaves off and new ones will begin growing. I don't know anything about your setup so I can't tell you how long that's going to take, but amazon swords grow wayy too fast for me so I stopped bothering with them a long time ago.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

really? i always had sword grow really slowly. I have a sword that i had over a year and its still not as large as one i bought from an lfs. They are both huge but the growth rate for me was rather slow


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

Kimchi24 said:


> really? i always had sword grow really slowly. I have a sword that i had over a year and its still not as large as one i bought from an lfs. They are both huge but the growth rate for me was rather slow


What kind of light did you have yours under? and how big was the tank? I had one in a 20 gallon that just got out of control big and when I tried it in my dirted tank I was getting new leaves everyday- every other day and it was just too much.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

always had a dual t5ho on a 33 gallon that was 14 inches high, and then a 33 gallon that was 16 inches high. now its in a 46 gallon that is 20 inches high  i had 2 t5hos running on the 46 but changed it to just one


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## monk21 (Dec 5, 2012)

So i trimmed the plant cutting near the base of it most of the tall leaves. I hope everything will be ok. For the record It had grown to 25"


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

monk21 said:


> So i trimmed the plant cutting near the base of it most of the tall leaves. I hope everything will be ok. For the record It had grown to 25"


everything will be fine just continue with regulator maintenance like frets and whatever else you do. You should start to see new growth within a week


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

you might want to replace them with maybe a bleheri sword. I have a very large one that is fully mature and it would just fit in a 75 height wise. The very tips might touch the top of the water but just barely if they did.

Too bad I'm not in your area or I could trade some big bleheri for your other type of sword as mine are in 90 gallon tanks so I have more height available.


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