Dear Cheryl, a friend of mine had an amazon sword in his tank that a couple of Barbs ate down to the root. He gave me what was left, a stub. I put it in my tank and in a couple of days there was visible growth. I think you could probably remove quite a bit of the leaves as long as the roots stay intact. just my two cents-ILAN _______________________________________________ AGA-Member mailing list AGA-Member@thekrib.com http://lists.thekrib.com/mailman/listinfo/aga-member