Prevent duckweed from clogging filter intake?

[Clovis]

Anyone have good ideas how I can segregate the tidal 55 in my tank so the surface plants don’t clog the skimmer but it can still intake water? Need a partition or something? 

[Socqua]

A lot of people use airline tubing or straws inserted end to end to float around the floating plants to keep them segregated. I've never done it myself, but that may be an idea..

[H.K.Luterman]

Neither one of these are my pictures, but these are the two common ways I've seen. 

 

[Clovis]

Thanks tubing seems so obvious!

[Trish]

I did it backwards and tried to confine the frogbit and duckweed.  

[MJV Aquatics]

5 hours ago, H.K.Luterman said:

Neither one of these are my pictures, but these are the two common ways I've seen. 

Interesting but neither of those HOBs have a surface skimmer so not clear about the purpose of the guards.

I wonder if a piece of sponge might be secured with a rubber band?

[H.K.Luterman]

3 minutes ago, MJV Aquatics said:

Interesting but neither of those HOBs have a surface skimmer so not clear about the purpose of the guards.

I wonder if a piece of sponge might be secured with a rubber band?

I think maybe the water exiting the filter pushes the duckweed down under the water, and then it gets stuck on the intake. So they just make a barrier to keep the duckweed away from the output.... waterfall... thing.

[Maggie]

23 minutes ago, MJV Aquatics said:

Interesting but neither of those HOBs have a surface skimmer so not clear about the purpose of the guards.

I wonder if a piece of sponge might be secured with a rubber band?

I have salvinia and if it's not kept away, it gets continually battered in the filter flow and eventually dies, or it gets stuck behind the filter and accumulates debris back there, and makes a gross mess on the glass at the water line. 

[Dawn T]

One, I'd put a coarse sponge on the intake itself to keep it from getting clogged. I do that anyway, thanks to a recommendation in one of @Cory's YT videos. Until I added that sponge, I was constantly dealing with the intake getting clogged with plants. Ah, the trials of heavily planted tanks. LOL

Two, if you're trying to keep floating plants away from the filter OUTPUT, you can sink an airstone in that part of the tank, so the bubbles feed straight up under the output. The bubbling will gently push the floating plants away from the filter output. If you use fine bubbles, it won't cause increased turbulence that floating plants don't tend to like.