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How to keep duckweed alive! T_T


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I have kept it alive and killed it. The Duckweed did NOT like the surface agitation from the Sponge filter even though it was in a 20 tall- it eventually died. That tank has a lid- but the tank that I CAN keep it alive in has a pump with directed flow and has a lid- duckweed does very well in it. 

Edited by xXInkedPhoenixX
to clarify
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Plants do what plants want to do. Duckweed typically likes lots of light and relatively little water movement. I think, I hope, I've finally weeded it out of my ten-gallon tank. I've got most of it out of my fifty. I'm using my surface skimmer now to try and clear my 30 high. It's one of those good news, bad news plants. Good news is it absorbs nitrates like mad. The bad news is it'll grow so fast when happy that it'll block out your light. My four tanks would fill a big stainless-steel bowl with duckweed each Saturday when it was at its worst.

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I don't think you are going to find any one answer.  Maybe you should try some wild caught Duckweed from the local lake/pond.  Last month I began growing Duckweed in a shallow tray next to the window. Scraped off my kayak, the surviving pieces are not multiplying as fast as I expected, but they look good and they are multiplying. They share the same environment as the house plants.: aquarium water, sunlight, low humidity, low temps. 55-60 at night.  In a few months I should have enough to begin the Silver Dollar challenge.

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Duckweed eats nitrates like crazy and can "starve" out. It also does not like a lot of surface agitation. So, if the little plantlets get knocked under the surface, they die off pretty quick and you end up with a ton of little duckweed stems littering your aquarium floor. The tanks that I regularly thin out my duckweed, seem to grow back healthier.

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As suggested above, hard water isn't ideal, nor is strong current. Duckweed seems to favour tanks that are well established. With that in mind, it depends what fish you have too, because almost all of mine like to eat it.

Rosy barbs in particular have field days on the stuff. I recently covered almost 100x45cm surface area on my 660l display tank, the rosy barbs have ate at least a third of it in just a fortnight. They love it!

If you really want to establish some I would take water out of your main tank, put it in a seperate tank with perhaps just a bubbler to keep very slight current, and have some decently high intensity lights on it. If there's any die off dose with a small amount of fertilizer. If it keeps dying off, you might need R.O water and ferts. 

Once you've got a lot of the stuff, you never run out, but starting with a small amount has proven difficult for me too.

 

 

Edited by BigSkrimp
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