Sometimes duckweed is good

[Cinnebuns]

I've been having tons of tanks issues. Like literally only 1 tank isn't have major issues and even it has minor issues. My 20 gallon had a complete cycle crash. When that happened I had MAYBE 4 leaves of duckweed. Because of the crash, the ammonia sky rocketed. Apparently duckweed loves ammonia because after a week that 4 leaves turned into...

 

Oh and here's 2 ammonia tests that were taken 48 hours apart. The only change is the duck weed growth. 

[mynameisnobody]

I use duckweed in any aquarium that doesn’t have a canister or hob. It’s the easiest way to a balanced tank without worrying about plant care. I’m in the hobby for the fish, not the plants so I welcome duckweed wherever I can. Plus my wakin goldfish eat a ton of it, so it’s a win win. 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Wild! I’ve had duckweed since I got my first little bunch of salvinia and honestly I’m just over it. I don’t mind it in the tank, but hate how it sticks to you and then everything else whenever you have to put your hand in. 
 

I just stripped all the duckweed out of a tank I’m converting, and I’m going to continue to do so to my other tanks. Still want the salvinia, red root floaters, and water lettuce. It’s gonna be a pain to separate all the duckweed from the other floaters but if I do it just one tank at a time I can be duckweed free by 2024, lol. 

[PineSong]

On 8/23/2023 at 7:10 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

 Still want the salvinia, red root floaters, and water lettuce. It’s gonna be a pain to separate all the duckweed from the other floaters but if I do it just one tank at a time I can be duckweed free by 2024, lol. 

Oh, the optimism of the early days of duckweed! May the force be with you. You can see the results of my war on duckweed in the Experiments section of the forum. The short version is: it came back. 

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/23/2023 at 11:06 PM, PineSong said:

Oh, the optimism of the early days of duckweed! May the force be with you. You can see the results of my war on duckweed in the Experiments section of the forum. The short version is: it came back. 

Early days?  This isn't my first time with duckweed by any stretch!  I've had the struggle of eradicating it on several occasions. The easiest way is to blast the surface agitation. In this case I kinda didn't care since the tank had crashed anyway and was put on hold. It was just interesting to see how much it does when left to itself. I mean, 4 leaves or so to that in 1 week isn't so much a good thing for a normal tank lol. Was just fun to see in this case though. 

I will add, my first time ever experiencing duckweed I didn't know what it was at first and thought maybe my water lettuce was making smaller babies than usual. I didn't realize in time what it actually was and it ended up killing my water lettuce 😪

On 8/23/2023 at 5:46 PM, mynameisnobody said:

I use duckweed in any aquarium that doesn’t have a canister or hob. It’s the easiest way to a balanced tank without worrying about plant care. I’m in the hobby for the fish, not the plants so I welcome duckweed wherever I can. Plus my wakin goldfish eat a ton of it, so it’s a win win. 

That's the biggest issue I've had with duckweed is it clogging the HOB intake. In this case I had the HOB turned off anyway so nbd. 

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/23/2023 at 6:10 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

Wild! I’ve had duckweed since I got my first little bunch of salvinia and honestly I’m just over it. I don’t mind it in the tank, but hate how it sticks to you and then everything else whenever you have to put your hand in. 
 

I just stripped all the duckweed out of a tank I’m converting, and I’m going to continue to do so to my other tanks. Still want the salvinia, red root floaters, and water lettuce. It’s gonna be a pain to separate all the duckweed from the other floaters but if I do it just one tank at a time I can be duckweed free by 2024, lol. 

I can't speak for the other 2 plants but I have successfully seperated water lettuce from duckweed before. It does require kind of restarting and being willing to sacrifice some of the water lettuce. Any that was just covered in duckweed I just threw away. The stuff that was mostly clean I would quick dip under the water to wash the duckweed off. I'd be more safe than sorry and throw out any questionable. You don't wanna dip the water lettuce too much or that will kill it. 

Your comment also reminded me about a post I saw on fb once. Lady was boiling water in a pot while cooking and found a leaf of duckweed found its way in 🤣🤣

[AllFishNoBrakes]

On 8/23/2023 at 10:06 PM, PineSong said:

The short version is: it came back

I was successful with the removal in my 20 long. The 29 I just pulled it out of today seems good so far. Those were easy though; any floating plants were being removed! Going to be much more tough to eradicate it from the other floaters. One tank at a time though… I’d drive myself crazy trying to do multiple tanks at once. 
 

As @Cinnebuns said, I’ve definitely transferred all the floating plants and rinsed/submerged them to “wash off” the duckweed, but I didn’t try to get it all. At that point, I wanted to just massively thin it out. This time though, I want it eradicated. 

[Tanked]

I love reading Duckweed related posts.  It has never lived up to its reputation in the tanks where I have intentionally introduced it. It escaped into the small planted community tank, and hasn't been seen since🙈 I do keep enough growing on the windowsill to restock the large community salad bar.

[JettsPapa]

On 8/24/2023 at 9:21 AM, Tanked said:

I love reading Duckweed related posts.  It has never lived up to its reputation in the tanks where I have intentionally introduced it. It escaped into the small planted community tank, and hasn't been seen since🙈 I do keep enough growing on the windowsill to restock the large community salad bar.

I'm confident it's just waiting for you to let your guard down.  When you least expect it you'll find half of the tank covered with it.

[Root]

I removed all duckweed from my main display last year and haven’t seen it since. It was a painstaking process, but for some reason l miss it now and have found myself thinking of adding it back. 🤷‍♂️ 

[JettsPapa]

On 8/24/2023 at 12:04 PM, Root said:

I removed all duckweed from my main display last year and haven’t seen it since. It was a painstaking process, but for some reason l miss it now and have found myself thinking of adding it back. 🤷‍♂️ 

You should check with your doctor.  You may be able to get a shot or pill to cure that.

Edited August 31, 2023 by JettsPapa

[Rube_Goldfish]

The first line on Mrs. Goldfish's fishkeeping resume, if such a thing existed, would be "eliminated duckweed in two tanks", both of which had and still have other floating plants. She got a pair of oversized plastic tweezers from the dollar store and just spent time pulling out any duckweed she found. It took a while, but eventually she got it all, and we've been duckweed-free for about a year now.