duckweed

nags

OMG I got some from my pet store and stuff is crazy does anyone like using this stuff? and if so how to control it? It sticks to everything and blocks my fish from eating very annoyed with this stuff I am glad I only paid like 90 cents for it

Boredomb

LoL yeah that's pretty much Duckweed for you. When do water changes "trim" it back to half or less assuming you do water changes once a week. If not then you might want to atleast "trim"the duckweed once a week. If you don't it will take over your tank as you found out. I has this plant once and only once
It came as a hitchhiker plant when I ordered some plants once.

kafkabeetle

This might be helpful for you. It grows fast so you basically have to remove some at every water change so your other plants can get enough light. It'll definitely give you good water quality, but lots of people hate it for the same reasons you've already mentioned. ;p

SinCrisis

I got rid of mine pretty easily, i used to keep it intentionally to control nitrates and light intensity. To get rid of it, i used a cup and a net. Just use the cup to scoop up the duckweed, pour into the net. The net will catch the weed and the water goes back into the tank. Repeat until there are no visible bits left. If you tilt the cup and let the water run into the cup, you can get the ones in the corners and around your equipment. Over the next few weeks, just keep an eye on it and anytime you see it, just get it out with a net or cup. I was able to get rid of my duckweed while having other floating plants in the tank as well this way so its quite effective.

redchigh

That's the same technique I use to control it. It clogged up my filter intakes, but I don't really mind. It slows down the filter flow, which is a good thing.

rhymon78

floating plants that are better than duckweed are the likes of dwarf water lettuce, or Salvinia. these are much larger than duckweed, and the roots that grow long look awesome dangling down into the tank! they eat up ammonia etc too. I think that duckweed is more of a pest than a plant. I haven't had it myself, but from what I have seen, people seem to hate the stuff!

Don't get disheartened by floating plants though, you just need to find a larger species. when feeding flakes, I always unplug my filter and scoop the floating plants aside to make a gap and then drop the flakes there, the fish don't mind. Once all the flakes are gone I turn the filter back on.

nags

yeah I might look into bigger floaters but my glass cats use the current of the filter to feed, It simulates there natural habit of feeding its pretty funny to watch them tread water and jump up to grab the flake floating in the current lol I could pull a bigger floater to the far side though. thanks for the help!

Geomancer

Haha, yeah, I have some Amazon Frogbit that has roots going down about 8-10 inches. They're huge! And they kind of look like an alien, akin to War of the Worlds. The big alien walkers with long legs Or if you play games, the walkers in Half Life 2.

rhymon78

hmm, the Amazon frogbit is rather large right? more like a small version of a lily pad I think?

yeah the roots look awesome

heres a couple pics I just took of my floaters, I believe I have 2 species in there. I originally purchased a couple bags of very small plants that the shop told me was Salvinia, I added that and its grown quite a bit.

I then found someone selling dwarf water lettuce on ebay, so I got some of that but I believe that the stuff I got from the shop and ebay were the same thing.

At the LFS they had a tank set up with fish in and these awesome flowing plants, with really whispy long roots. I wanted to buy more of the original plants but they had run out so I asked if they would hook me up with a bag of the mature plants they had in their tank! which they kindly did. Now... this stuff I believe is Salvinia, it looks totally different, is a darker green, the leave structure is different etc.

You can see from my pics the two different types. I tried to take some pics from underneath but they didn't turn out so good. anyway, I guess amazon forgbit is another one to go for also.

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Byron

First three photos (from above) are Salvinia, probably S. molesta as is explained in our profile. The two photos from below seem to be the same plant.

This is a beautiful little plant with its silvery-gray-green leaves.

Byron.