Question about trimming

[catalyst]

I have a 6 foot 125 gallon tank and my vallisneria plants are laying on top of the water the entire length of the tank. It seems to be blocking a fair amount of light and its becoming a pain to feed and clean.

Can I trim this plant? If so should I be just taking some off the top or do I need to cut at the base?

[Dabrits]

When my vals reached the top of the tank I cut them off at the top. Val won't repair its leaves. So I found that when I cut a leaf, that particular leaf stopped growing altogether. The other leaves would still grow like normal though. I'm no expert, but that's what I've done.

[jerrybforl]

I've done the same thing in the past!

[jonny_ftm]

Vals should be trimmed regularly to the root as trimmed leaves won't grow and will decay and give you more work of cleaning debris later. Trimmed leaves, not growing, will also get ugly.

You should never let them all reach the surface as you now have to trim many at the same time, you should trim as they grow, part by part