[mistergreen]

And it's loosing its delicate underwater leaves.. Should I cut all of the floating leaves to encourage the underwater leaves?

there's 4-5 floaters and one underwater leaf left.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

That's what dwarf lily's do. They're actually a "dwarf" pond plant, not so much a dwarf in an aquarium. All the leaves on them will try to reach the surface. I had one that I kept cut back, but I had to trim it 2x a week. It got to the point where I ended up giving up on it. I let it get really tall, around 22" stems with 6" or better leaves and then I bartered it at an LFS.

Tommy

 

[fresh_lynny]

cut all of the shooters...so the energy can stay at the base of the plant. It is high maintenance but the best way to deal with it.

 

[Aqua Dave]

My tiger lotus plants (a form of lily I believe) do the same thing. Sometimes cutting the shooters helps, sometimes it just causes the plant to die off/go dormant. My plants seem to periodically die off and then a month or two later they pop back up. Still haven't figured out why. I recently increased my CO2 some and that seems to have encouraged the leaves to stay low and not shoot up.

David

 

[Anthony]

A lot of times once that first floater hits the surface the plant will try to keep sending out more floaters. I usually just trim all but the lowest leaves and then try to make sure no new growth hits the water surface.

 

[RoseHawke]

High maintenance is the way to put it. My tiger did the same thing. It got so I was cutting a leaf that was "doing a runner" for the surface almost every day. Finally pulled it.

 

[Anthony]

Yep, they sure do grow fast. Mine normally grows a couple inches a day, and if you do a blackout you can be sure that almost all leaves will be at the waters surface.

 

[typically]

i started mine from a bulb in my 29 that was low light. it would send up leaves to the top pretty consistently. i moved it to my 10 gallon with high light and i just had my first leaf hit the surface it was in the tank for about a month and a half. IMO it depends on how much light you have.