My duckweed and hair algae are GONE!

[Kelly S]

Is this a barb thing? Am I starving them? I don't think I'm starving them; I bumped the auto feeder to 2 feedings per day instead of one, but maybe they need more? A couple of days ago I pulled a big handful of hair algae out of my other tank (yeah sorry no show tanks here). This evening it's totally gone. There is a SAE, but the algae and duckweed did fine until I added tiger and glass rosy barbs. I'm not complaining, but I'm surprised! (These guys are fun to watch too; highly recommend!) The moss, and other plants seem to be doing well, but the moss is picked beautifully clean.

[Theplatymaster]

@Kelly S

rosy barbs will pick at hair alges, but im not sure about the duckweed.

[Kelly S]

I know they're omnivores, but I didn't expect them to be so thorough!

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/15/2023 at 7:50 PM, Kelly S said:

I know they're omnivores, but I didn't expect them to be so thorough!

are you complaining?

[Kelly S]

Of course not! As I said, just very surprised.

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/15/2023 at 4:15 PM, Kelly S said:

I'm not complaining, but I'm surprised! (These guys are fun to watch too; highly recommend!)

They are omnivores 🙂 .  Sometimes it has it's benefits!

[Lennie]

On 3/16/2023 at 2:15 AM, Kelly S said:

Is this a barb thing? Am I starving them? I don't think I'm starving them; I bumped the auto feeder to 2 feedings per day instead of one, but maybe they need more? A couple of days ago I pulled a big handful of hair algae out of my other tank (yeah sorry no show tanks here). This evening it's totally gone. There is a SAE, but the algae and duckweed did fine until I added tiger and glass rosy barbs. I'm not complaining, but I'm surprised! (These guys are fun to watch too; highly recommend!) The moss, and other plants seem to be doing well, but the moss is picked beautifully clean.

Great news for you!

A lil bit sad news for me. Cause I was expecting SAE to be the potential answer for keeping my new tank hair algae free 😄

[jwcarlson]

Your duckweed is probably just waiting. 🤣

[Kelly S]

On 3/16/2023 at 4:26 AM, Lennie said:

Great news for you!

A lil bit sad news for me. Cause I was expecting SAE to be the potential answer for keeping my new tank hair algae free 😄

Lol sorry! The SAE was a better worker when it was younger. The mollies and platies in my other tank are helpful too, but moreso if I feed less. At the moment I'm feeding that tank kinda heavily because of fry and shrimplets.

On 3/16/2023 at 6:01 AM, jwcarlson said:

Your duckweed is probably just waiting. 🤣

Lol I actually kinda like it, and it's in my other tanks anyway. But this tank was my major duckweed producer before the barbs. My chickens and ducks are going to be sad!

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/16/2023 at 6:52 AM, Kelly S said:

Lol sorry! The SAE was a better worker when it was younger. The mollies and platies in my other tank are helpful too, but moreso if I feed less. At the moment I'm feeding that tank kinda heavily because of fry and shrimplets.

Lol I actually kinda like it, and it's in my other tanks anyway. But this tank was my major duckweed producer before the barbs. My chickens and ducks are going to be sad!

You could always grow some in a tub or tote outside (once it's warm enough) for the birds.

[Tanked]

Your omnivores are always on a seefood diet.  If you are feeding the fish twice daily, they are not starving.  Mine get fed once daily.

I have Tin Foil Barbs in the 75 that will eat any plant they can get close to.  Recently I saw one of them nibbling on the BBA.  A different tank has Angels and Silver Dollars. This tank is part of a long running experiment to grow enough Duckweed in a protected area of the tank to feed the fish.  So far, either the DW won't grow, or the fish are eating all of it. Any algae scraped from the HOB is instantly eaten.   The best part: A large, mostly smooth rock in the tank is usually covered with some sort of spot algae. This rock occasionally looks like it was trimmed professionally, with all of the algae on one half removed in a nearly perfect straight line. 

[jwcarlson]

On 3/16/2023 at 5:52 AM, Kelly S said:

 My chickens and ducks are going to be sad!

I think my chickens are too spoiled or something.  They eventually ate it or scratched it in (before I eliminated it) and they eventually eat dwarf water lettuce now, but they never seem eager.  Years ago I set up a japansese beetle trap that just funnelled the beetles into a dish of water and the chickens could eat them.  It was a bad year for them and I caught GALLONS of them.  Unbelievable numbers.  At first the chickens were eating them ravenously.  But I don't think they've touched them since.  If I catch them I'll throw them to them and they seem uninterested.  They also don't seem to care much for earth worms.  But when it rains there are TONS of those so they see them and probably eat them a lot. They still love grubs that me or the kids dig up though.  They'll ruin the dang yard if they start finding some grubs.