I screwed up and got the herpes (duckweed)

[Beau1990]

So I recently acquired a mix of floaters in an auction (frogbit, salvinia minima, red rootfloaters) and snuck in the bag was duckweed and now it's over taken my tank my question is how much of a nightmare is it to get all the duckweed out? I want to keep the other floaters. Or would it be easier to just take everything out?

[Fish Folk]

Haha! Embrace the D-weed!!!

I’ve found that if you can net it off the surface daily for the first few weeks, you’ll manage it pretty well thereafter.

First, you could try moving your other floaters to a bucket of tank water, and hand pick out duckweed if there. Then go over the aquarium surface, and net it out there.

From that point, daily maintenance for 2x weeks.

But honestly... we embrace the stuff. It regulates parameters, calms fish by muting light, adds a snack for certain species, etc.

[laritheloud]

On 6/16/2021 at 10:21 AM, Beau1990 said:

So I recently acquired a mix of floaters in an auction (frogbit, salvinia minima, red rootfloaters) and snuck in the bag was duckweed and now it's over taken my tank my question is how much of a nightmare is it to get all the duckweed out? I want to keep the other floaters. Or would it be easier to just take everything out?

When I noticed some creep in on my water lettuce, I went in and picked out every last leaf I could find floating on the surface by hand. I haven't seen any duckweed in 3 weeks since.

Be patient and persistent, and clear out any speck you can see. It'll take awhile.

[Griznatch]

ahh duckweed... I have a love/hate relationship with it. It is a really good plant for shade and eating excess nutrients. I make fish food out of it, and also feed it to my goldfish in the pond outside. It sticks to everything, each time I put my arm in my 75 for maintenance or to move something, I get a half a pound of it stuck in my arm hairs lol. I have pretty much eliminated it in the tanks I didn't want it in, by doing what Fish Folk  and laritheloud did.
 

[Griznatch]

Forgot to add, my female dwarf gouramis love duckweed. They've kept it under control pretty well in my wife's 55 gallon tank. The males I had really didn't seem to care about it.

[Phantom240]

I had a duckweed infestation in my 45 bowfront, and I found that after netting the majority of it, I could use my python (or any gravel siphon really) angled upward to skim the surface and dispose of a good bit of the nasty pest plant. Every water change, I'd spend a good bit of time skimming the surface like that, and eventually I got the last stragglers after a month or so. Gives a good excuse to do water changes too lol

 

[aquachris]

On 6/16/2021 at 10:43 AM, Fish Folk said:

Haha! Embrace the D-weed!!!

I’ve found that if you can net it off the surface daily for the first few weeks, you’ll manage it pretty well thereafter.

First, you could try moving your other floaters to a bucket of tank water, and hand pick out duckweed if there. Then go over the aquarium surface, and net it out there.

From that point, daily maintenance for 2x weeks.

But honestly... we embrace the stuff. It regulates parameters, calms fish by muting light, adds a snack for certain species, etc.

Recently did a major clean out in some of my tanks that I have other floaters in (salvinia and dwarf water lettuce).  I took each of the good plants out, dunked them swished them until the area was clear and put them in another bucket.  Did this for a long long long time, then I used a powerhead and used it as a DIY skimmer and cleared out the rest of the duckweed.

Cant remember the video I saw it on, but here's one:

 

[Streetwise]

I use combs, hair picks, and nets to remove it. I give some of it to a turtle tank.

Another option if you don’t have fry, tiny fish, or shrimp, is to run an Eheim skimmer with no foam in it, to just macerate the duckweed in the tank.

[ARMYVET]

On 6/16/2021 at 7:51 PM, aquachris said:

Recently did a major clean out in some of my tanks that I have other floaters in (salvinia and dwarf water lettuce).  I took each of the good plants out, dunked them swished them until the area was clear and put them in another bucket.  Did this for a long long long time, then I used a powerhead and used it as a DIY skimmer and cleared out the rest of the duckweed.

Cant remember the video I saw it on, but here's one:

 

It looks neat but only if you don’t have fry or shrimp in the tank.  Well fry and shrimp youn want to keep alive that is.

I also would scoop out the bulk of the duck weed first then let this get whatever I missed. 

 

[gardenman]

I use an Odyssea Clean 100 Surface Skimmer where I enlarged the openings on the skimmer basket to suck up duckweed. A piece of quilt batting serves as a filter material and it cleans up the excess in short order. I then spend time picking out the snails and returning them to the tank, but the surface skimmer does a nice job of sucking in duckweed.

[Tanked]

Whenever I read similar posts, I get the urge to intentionally introduce Duckweed just to see if the Tinfoil Barbs and Silver Dollars are up to the challenge.

[Marnol D]

@Griznatch Well you've peaked my curiosity. How do you make fish food out of it? I know Carp/GoldFish/Bala sharks will eat it but now im curious if youre letting it dry and then crushing it into a powder/flake.

[Tihshho]

Be careful doing this. I've tried it in the past from letting it air dry and a week later I found some growing in a tank that never had any cross contamination from besides attempting to feed the dried duckweed.

[Griznatch]

@Marnol D  I created a separate post, so as to not hijack this one.

@Tihshho the stuff I made went through a blender, then gets spread out on a pan and dried.
 

Link below...

Duckweed food

Edited September 14, 2021 by Griznatch
to fix the link

[aquachris]

On 9/13/2021 at 9:21 AM, ARMYVET said:

It looks neat but only if you don’t have fry or shrimp in the tank.  Well fry and shrimp youn want to keep alive that is.

I also would scoop out the bulk of the duck weed first then let this get whatever I missed. 

 

Yeah fry would be worrisome. With the shrimp I didn't have issue with, most stay away. I had one tank a few got in but they get stuck on the top. I just remove them and off they went to do shrimpy things

[Streetwise]

When removing Duckweed, I make an effort to shake, shake, shake; shake my hair pick. This moves the shrimp off, and drops the snails. I still like to check with a clear bucket to be sure.

[Keeg]

On 9/15/2021 at 7:21 PM, Streetwise said:

When removing Duckweed, I make an effort to shake, shake, shake; shake my hair pick. This moves the shrimp off, and drops the snails. I still like to check with a clear bucket to be sure.

I do the same except with a funnel, they fall right out the bottom 😂

[Streetwise]

Please share photos or videos of this magical funnel!

[Arty Mars]

I am fascinated by people not wanting duckweed. I'm not sure what the cause is, but it's really hard to find in Australia and maybe it doesn't thrive as much as it seems to in USA, but a handful of Duckweed cost's about $20 here and it never seems to go wild like it does everywhere else haha, i wish i could get duckweed to take over my tanks lol

[ARMYVET]

On 9/16/2021 at 12:12 PM, Arty Mars said:

I am fascinated by people not wanting duckweed. I'm not sure what the cause is, but it's really hard to find in Australia and maybe it doesn't thrive as much as it seems to in USA, but a handful of Duckweed cost's about $20 here and it never seems to go wild like it does everywhere else haha, i wish i could get duckweed to take over my tanks lol

I will sell you some and Ill do it cheaper....How about $15 a pound ....I have a few tons....where do you want it sent?😂

[Beau1990]

On 9/17/2021 at 7:23 AM, ARMYVET said:

I will sell you some and Ill do it cheaper....How about $15 a pound ....I have a few tons....where do you want it sent?😂

@ARMYVET gonna be the pablo Escobar of duckweed lolololol 

 

[ARMYVET]

I GOT YOUR DUCKWEED!

[Arty Mars]

On 9/17/2021 at 9:23 PM, ARMYVET said:

I will sell you some and Ill do it cheaper....How about $15 a pound ....I have a few tons....where do you want it sent?😂

ONLY $15 A POUND! If you can fill up a shipping container let me know and we'll be in business haha

 

[gardenman]

Here's a photo of my duckweed skimmer in action. (It's in the bottom right of the photo. It's the Odyssea 100 Surface Skimmer with the modified/widened openings for duckweed.) This tank (my 30 high) was covered in duckweed yesterday. Now most of it is gone. The skimmer had to be emptied three times so far, but it does a good job.

 

[ARMYVET]

On 9/26/2021 at 8:32 AM, Arty Mars said:

ONLY $15 A POUND! If you can fill up a shipping container let me know and we'll be in business haha

 

You get the Australian govt to let me move there and live and we can be partners in the duckweed growing business!