Trim Brazilian Micro Sword (Lilaeopsis brasiliensis)?

[omen]

Hi guys, I've grown a lot of carpetting plants in the past but for some reason the interwebs won't answer my question should trim Brazilian Micro Sword?
Just to add, I've not trimmed it yet and my main motivation to do so is that newer leaves are coming in shorter than the older ones, plus I'm getting some diatoms algae predominantly on the Micro Sword, and weirdly hardly anywhere else in the tank at all...

 

[Finn]

You can trim it just fine. The leaves will remain the height they're cut, but new growing points will appear from each node which will keep the leaf density regenerating so it's not so much of a problem if you want to snip them right back to clean up. Perhaps your Lilaeopsis is slowing down, shrinking and gathering algae due to a deficiency somewhere? From what you've described it doesn't sound particularly happy.

 

[omen]

That's exactly what I had been thinking. I had, while the tank first got established planted heavily and ran a photo period of 3. 5 hours on 4 off then a further 3.5 hours. I was managing to avoid any concerning algae but u think perhaps this photo period doesn't suit this plant so I changed it a few days ago to an 8 hour constant photo period ramping up and back down from 20% intensity to 4 hours 100% light. I'm hoping it'll like the additional light but am curious as to whether I should maybe hack it back now... Perhaps wait a week or two until it gets accustomed to this new lighting schedule?