Separating baby plants from Amazon Sword

[Aquafriend]

My Amazon Sword has the long piece (runner?) with five young plants on it, drifting upwards to the top of the tank. All the baby plants have roots, except the very top one. Do I just cut off each baby plant and plant it seperately? And leave the top one attached to the one under it until it has roots too?
I can see this turning into an over-run plant tank. Can the babies be left on the mother, with the roots just hanging? I don't mind planting a few, but not all of them as they'll multiply non-stop!
Thanks for any info.

 

[TankGirl]

I'd remove the babies with roots, as they will cause the mother plant to deteriorate, using her nutrient stores. As a rule try to remove babies as soon as they are able to be planted on their own and this will keep the mother healthy. Maybe it is time to sell some cuttings to the LFS!

 

[Guest]

Your one the right track. Remove the babies and plant them once they develope thier own root system.

Keep in mind Amazon Swords get rather large. I had two Amazons in a 40g, which grew to four. Then came the giving away and tossing babies. Needless to say after 8 months of pruning four monster Amazon's every 3 or 4 weeks. I sold them.

Amazons really need to be planted in larger tanks (55g +). A healthy 16" tall large/ x large Amazon can easily consume 10-20g of tank space, per plant.

Something to consider in the future. HTH

 

[Aquafriend]

Holy smokes! 8O OK, I'll remove the babies. I was going to plant them, but not if they're going to take over, and keep reproducing. I didn't realize they grew quite that vigorously.
Thanks for the advice.

Oh, silly question, but can I just reach in with some regular scissors (rinsed off) and snip them off? I just have standard kitchen scissors, the metal ones with plastic handles.

 

[rubysoho]

plant them, let them grow, then sell them for store credit

 

[malkore]

Yeah, plant them, grow them out to a 6" diameter, then sell/trade/swap them to other hobbyists.

 

[TankGirl]

Regular kitchen scissors are fine, just be sure they are very sharp.

 

[Aquafriend]

OK, thanks a million eveyone.
Now the tank has Ich, so I'm not putting the cuttings anywhere for the time being. New tank, new fish. I'm just very glad I didn't give in to temptation and add the 4 (healthy) fish from my 20gal like I'm planning to. I kept telling myself to wait a couple weeks, no matter how healthy the new ones seemed to be. Just goes to show you! 8)