Duckweed Control

courtesy of tobym

Really smart people may not have this problem, but a planted aquarium, it seems, always winds up with a duckweed infestation. I guess they call it a weed because it grows like one. A few years ago when I started doing major additions to my aquarium collection, I bought huge amounts of plastic plants in hopes of avoiding duckweed and snails. The plastic plants are now in a large bag in my garage. Live plants are so good for the aquarium environment that I decided to put up with the attendant problems, but yesterday I made something of a duckweed breakthrough.

During my weekly partial water change and duckweed dip routine, something kind of interesting became apparent. Duckweed and hornwort don’t much like each other. In aquariums where hornwort growth is lush, duckweed grows slower. No doubt it would take over the aquarium if the weekly duckweed dipping stopped, but the hornwort really helps. In fairness, it’s appropriate to point out that duckweed probably improves water chemistry just like any other live plant. I hope it’s also good for the lawn, because that’s where most of it winds up.

See also the thread going on - a Dollop about Duckweed