Tips on removing/eliminating duckweed?

I have, for lack of a better term, a duckweed infestation. I've been scooping out some of it every day, but it's tedious and seemingly ineffective, as it multiplies every night.

I am running a 40 breeder with medium light and CO2. I'd love to get rid of most of the duckweed (all of it?) so that more light can reach the bottom of the tank, if possible.

Yoshizuki,
Yoshizuki avatar

As others said, you'll have to manually remove it. In my 130L, I used a 5cm net to get 75% of it once a week.

Duckweed may be a drawback for lightning but is also really useful to regulate nitrates.

CFoix,

It's a matter of mechanical removal - what you call 'scooping' - or introducing a herbivore to control the plants multiplication by vegetative propagation. Mechanical removal is actually great for exporting nasties from the aquarium water, though.

Devi,

I introduced it to two of my tanks and of course it took over, on one I used a headlice comb to sweep them all up, it was a bit annoying but it works and much better than netting as often recommended.

On the second tank I added florida flagfish which eat the roots and upped the flow, this has led to a real decline and it's now a nice addition to that tank rather than a nuisance.

BaldProphet,
BaldProphet avatar

Just keep scooping. And scooping. And scooping. Eventually, you'll get to the point where you're picking individual duckweeds out with your fingers. It's labor-intensive.

The only other thing I can think of is having high flow, which duckweed is supposed to dislike. You could potentially kill it off and let the critters in the tank eat it.

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