Too Much Duckweed.

[cooledwhip]

Hey all I live near lots of ponds and small lakes and I found a new river trail with lots of duckweed. literally the entire surface of the water is duckweed. It was awesome, the water was crystal clear, and the water was only like 2 feet deep. I'd say its more of a creek. The duckweed is awesome too, there is so much of it. I brought some home and it compared identical to the duckweed I ordered from an aquarium website. It was ridiculous how I paid so much for that handful and now I have a virtually unlimited amount. It's common duckweed, and the water was home to fishes so the plant is obviously not toxic or anything. It was safe for my aquarium and is doing great in it now. 
 
Would anyone like to buy some? There is literally so much duckweed I could just give it away. You know those black plastic pots that plants come in? with the wool? I will take one of those and fill it completely and packed to the rim with duckweed and sell that to you for $10. If you want more, (Like I can do baseball sizes, or even fill up mason jars with this stuff. theres so much of it. I can take a 5 gallon bucket and fill that up completely with just duckweed)
 
Message me and tell me how much you want and we can work out a price.
 
Thanks

 

[WesleytheBetta]

That is awesome for you!  You could post to aquabid or something?  I'm in TN so if I had a bigger tank I'd love it...sadly no space for another tank right now 

 

[Alasse]

Be careful selling weed you got from a wild water source. If you buy it you need to quarantine it in case there are any hitchhikers....If anyone happens to introduce something into their tanks, you could find yourself sued

 

[cooledwhip]

sued. rofl.  yeah ok.
 
to get rid of hitchhikers you just quickly rinse the plant in like a drop of bleach/1 gallon water ratio. thats why some of my tanks are snail free, because I do that.

 

[Byron]

There is more to the possible problems than this.  You should absolutely never use plants collected from your local waterways in a tropical fish tank.  There are natural pathogens that are different from those in tropical waters, and species of fish have ways to deal with natural pathogens from their environment but not usually from another ecosystem.  The risk is present.
 
Second, duckweed owes its common name to the fact that it is a favourite food of ducks.  Nothing from a watercourse where ducks are present should ever be taken and used in an aquarium.  Ducks can carry various diseases spread via their droppings, and some of these can affect humans as well as tropical fish.
 
Byron.

 

[cooledwhip]

thank you i will take that into consideration.

 

[Alasse]

sued. rofl.  yeah ok.
 
to get rid of hitchhikers you just quickly rinse the plant in like a drop of bleach/1 gallon water ratio. thats why some of my tanks are snail free, because I do that.

You may laugh all you like, but if i lost a tank full of hundreds of dollars worth of fish, i certainly would be looking for payment.

Was just a warning is all.

 

[cooledwhip]

 

sued. rofl.  yeah ok.
 
to get rid of hitchhikers you just quickly rinse the plant in like a drop of bleach/1 gallon water ratio. thats why some of my tanks are snail free, because I do that.

You may laugh all you like, but if i lost a tank full of hundreds of dollars worth of fish, i certainly would be looking for payment.

Was just a warning is all.
 

If you can find a lawyer that would ACTUALLY sue for giving someone "bad aquarium plants" then sue away! I'm just saying its' very unlikely, consider my father practices personal injury law.
 
not to offend you, but arent you assuming responsibility for what you put in your tank? Just wondering.

 

[NickAu]

Be careful selling any plant on line, some plants are considered noxious weeds in some places and transporting them across state lines is a criminal offense.
 

 
If you can find a lawyer that would ACTUALLY sue for giving someone "bad aquarium plants" then sue away!

Its easy to find a lawyer who will take the case especially in the USA a $5 bunch of plants could cost YOU $20 000 in court costs.

 

[cooledwhip]

Be careful selling any plant on line, some plants are considered noxious weeds in some places and transporting them across state lines is a criminal offense.
 

 
If you can find a lawyer that would ACTUALLY sue for giving someone "bad aquarium plants" then sue away!

Its easy to find a lawyer who will take the case especially in the USA a $5 bunch of plants could cost YOU $20 000 in court costs.

In reality it won't!! No COURT or JUDGE would actually proceed and accept the case into the court. 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Calm it down here folks, please.
 
I can see both sides of argument here and honestly it's not worth pursuing about. Leave the suing and lawyers stuff aside.
 
As for the duckweed issues, there are indeed laws, am unsure about USA but certainly some states and especially  in Australia and New Zealand where plants being imported is strictly controlled and fines are handed out like confetti to anyone caught with such banned invasive plants.
 
Duckweed is exactly that, a weed. And a very invasive one at that and has been the culprit of many destroyed rivers, lakes and water habitats.
 
The other posts are merely cautioning you to be careful when it comes to selling, giving away and even collecting duckweed, I agree with those points. 
 
Personally I have had duckweed as a floating plant in my tank and honestly it really does take over the water surface, no open space was spared at all. Took me several weeks with a shrimp net and tweezers to finally get rid of them all from my tanks. Leave one single strand, leave or stem, boom, in a weeks time you got loads and have to start all over again in removing these. Pretty plant but too invasive and fast growing for my liking. Instead I now have water lettuce, much easier and love the long roots