Any advances in the war on duckweed?

[seangee]

Sadly I know the answer but thought I'd check

About a year ago I gave myself a temporary reprieve and cleared 2 tanks the old fashioned way (physical removal). By the end of summer I was quietly confident and then...
One day in late autumn I spotted a single leaf in the community tank. Of course I removed it but suddenly my tank is over-run again and today I have resumed battle. The tank has had zero contact with the outside world and I have managed to avoid any in the other 2 tanks.

I'm beginning to wonder if the stuff is actually a highly evolved form of bacteria and that, in fact, it exists everywhere.

 

[MattW]

I just intentionally added some to my tank last week , well the giant variant so it's a little easier to control.

 

[Gertrudae]

Some people here spray Easy Carbo on it and successfully remove it that way.

 

[anewbie]

Personally I think the only effective way to rid duck weed is to nuke it. Yes a 1 ton nuke should do the job.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

There is no need to resort to nuclear weapons. If you can acquire a WW II surplus flame thrower this will work quite well and without making your home and its residents glow in the dark. Just make sure you have fire insurance........

 

[anewbie]

There is no need to resort to nuclear weapons. If you can acquire a WW II surplus flame thrower this will work quite well and without making your home and its residents glow in the dark. Just make sure you have fire insurance........

You are of course correct as usual but wouldn't glowing in the dark be a positive side effect ?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Maybe, but only until parts of your body start falling off.......

 

[anewbie]

I haven't tried easy carbon or similar products recently but in the past i know it will kill or retard fragile plants so while it might be effective on duck weed it might impact other plants. In general i hate the stuff. I have tried snails (larger ones like mystery snails) without much success though they did manage to slaughter the pearl weed.

 

[Innesfan]

Goldfish love the stuff and make fast work of it. They are my go-to when there's an excess of it.

 

[GaryE]

You are of course correct as usual but wouldn't glowing in the dark be a positive side effect ?

I've wondered what everyone here looks like, but glo-anewbie had never crossed my mind. Until now. Green, purple or yellow? Hmmm.

I opened the forum moments ago after fighting a futile battle against duckweed in a 20. So this is pretty apropos. I know it will come back, but for now, I can feel righteous. No, wait, what's that?

I have eliminated it in tanks where the fish liked to eat it. Some rainbowfish, and some African tetras find it tasty. The problem is every species I've found to eat it is like every fish I know that eliminates pond snails - a bit too large for my smaller, most heavily infested tanks. Snails, I can defeat, but duckweed is eternal.

 

[anewbie]

Yea i hope i finally gotten it out of my 10 but i won't know for a few months (been fighing it for 2 years); current will of course get rid of it pretty fast and that is how i got rid of it in the 180; but the 10 hum... gold fishes are too big but i wonder if a flag fish would eat the stuff without devoring the other plants.

 

[Gertrudae]

it will kill or retard fragile plants

That's the key point. You only spray it directly onto the duckweed. For submerged plants, the dosage should therefore be very low.

In general i hate the stuff

I can understand that very well.

 

[Essjay]

I couldn't remember how long it is since I last saw duckweed in my tanks but a quick search on here provided some clues. In a thread from February 2022 I mentioned how I got rid of it.

It was time consuming. During a water change I removed all the floating plants (red root floater) into a bucket of old tank water, then removed every duckweed plant that I could find left in the tank. Once the water change was finished I filled 2 buckets with water. I shook each individual plant in the old tank water and placed them in the first bucket of clean water; then repeated the process moving them from the first bucket to the second, then repeated again putting the plants into a tub before putting them back in the tank. I checked the tank every day and removed any duckweed plants I found. It took a few weeks before I stopped finding any, and I haven't seen any duckweed in the almost 4 years since then.

This is OK with one or two tanks but I wouldn't like to have to clear duckweed this way from more than that.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Just eat it.

 

[anewbie]

Just eat it.

You first.