Best way to trim Amazon Sword

[Sluuuder]

My amazon sword has almost out grown my tank. I want to trim it down quit a bit cause im going to redo my tank in the next few days. Heres a pic of the sword:

[Yankee]

Cut the older leaves off at the bottom and keep the newer growth - you shouldn't cut the leaves in half.

[OVT]

Pull and then tear off the outside leaves away from the rhizome - sort of like peeling an onion.

[ronnie6989]

pull it out and see if you can pull plants apart....in that pic it should be more than one plant at the base or crown of plant. trim the roots and the leafs that are dying off.

Ronnie

[Yankee]

Oops, sorry, in my comment I meant to say you SHOULDN'T cut the leaves in half - touchscreen fail.

[Indian fern]

Originally Posted by OVT

Pull and then tear off the outside leaves away from the rhizome - sort of like peeling an onion.

+1, cutting leaves in half will make no difference. Prune the leaves down to the stalks.

[whickerda]

Originally Posted by Sluuuder

My amazon sword has almost out grown my tank.

This is what they do. It's very easy to underestimate how much space they really need.

+1 for the peeling-the-onion approach.

[greenman857]

Thinking of the sword plant like a perennial plant growing in my garden i'd cut the oldest leaves first. they're the outer most leaves, it even looks like some are starting decay. The plant grows from the center so leave those as much as possible.
You could peel it like some have suggested but that will set it back (which might be a good thing)
you could even cut the leaves in half but that wont look that good.

[kochman]

For my swords I do what all these guy's have said. My method for cutting is to take sharp stainless scissors , push them under substrate where they need to be cut and snip. I don't know of any benefit to this I just don't like seeing the cut off area's

[brogan]

I use scissors to cut mine.