# Dwarf Aquarium Lily's are NOT a good addition to 10 gallon tanks.



## IanHulett (Feb 19, 2013)

Hey all,
I bought a dwarf lily pad plant from walmart about a month ago and it sprouted about 2 weeks ago. It's my most recent plant and it's already the dominant plant in my aquarium. My other plants are fine so far but I doubt that will last very long since it's starting to block the light. So, I need to invest in a bigger tank because as a plant lover, I refuse to get rid of the lily. Can someone recommend the minimum tank size for a dwarf aquarium lily plant? Any other advice? Thanks a bunch.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Actually, you can just trim the leaves that get out of hand. Ideally if you want to keep the leaves short, trim them before they get too large or hit the surface and it will stay small. It's like pruning, and you can do that with all plants to maintain a shorter plant.


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## OrangeAugust (Jul 23, 2012)

I have one of those in my 55 gallon. It grows a lily pad a day, but they take two days to reach the top. I'm always trimming the lily pads and I usually only leave 5 in the water so the light doesn't get blocked out. The regular leaves at the bottom stay fairly small and grow more slowly, but I see how they can even get too large for a 10 gallon tank.


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## ilykadothechacha (Jul 7, 2013)

I had gotten one too! And it seemed like forever for it to grow and then outta nowhere it took over my tank! I have moved it to a taller tank. How far down do you cut the leaves off at?


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## tlatch89 (Apr 26, 2013)

Just trim it. Cut the entire stem off. Works fine in my 3 gallon.


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## ilykadothechacha (Jul 7, 2013)

Ok. So this is what mine looks like. Sorry if its a bad picture. 










Its on the right. Should I just cut off all the super tall ones? It wont kill it right?


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## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

Very nice, Tlatch. When you started, what percentage of leaves did you chop? Or, how many did you leave?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

ilykadothechacha said:


> Ok. So this is what mine looks like. Sorry if its a bad picture.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Looks good! Yeah, you can cut the super tall ones or whatever you want right down to the actual bulb and nope it won't kill it. Think of it as a hair cut, doesn't kill your hair right? Just grow's back more eventually! I think you may want to pull the bulb a little bit out of the gravel though. I'm no expert on lilies but I remember reading something about only having it halfway submerged in the substrate, that might have been just to get it started though....but it looks really good so far!

You can trim off whatever you want to, so you could just leave one leaf if you didn't want all of them there and then in a week or so it will grow some new leaves and new pads ^_^


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## tlatch89 (Apr 26, 2013)

ilykadothechacha said:


> Ok. So this is what mine looks like. Sorry if its a bad picture.
> 
> 
> Its on the right. Should I just cut off all the super tall ones? It wont kill it right?


You may want to cut off all of the stems and let it regrow. Also should maybe give them some more light, the higher the light the closer to the gravel they stay. See how your plants are all going toward the light on the left side?

I just cut off the big leaves and cut off the ones that want to go to the surface.


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