[kwal83]

Hi all. I'm looking for a sandwich bag full of normal size, not giant, duckweed. Just enough for a 5 gal tank. Anybody?

 

[jellopuddinpop]

If you live anywhere in the US, just wait til spring and peruse local ponds. Duckweed is freaking everywhere in most of the US.

 

[kwal83]

I do live in the US but I learned my lesson about pulling things out of a pond to put in an aquarium. I know most people hate duckweed and didn’t think it would be too difficult to find somebody that had extra.

 

[Raith]

Just out of curiosity, why do you want duckweed when there are better floaters out there?

 

[kwal83]

In my 5 gallon tank I have tried salvinia, red root floaters, water lettuce, frogbit, and duckweed. The salvinia gets roots so long they almost touch the bottom and my betta can’t move around. Frogbit isn’t much better and the leaves are bigger than I like for a 5 gallon tank cause they block too much light. Red root floaters are my favorite but they die. Water lettuce is too big. Duckweed was great but in an annoyed haste about a year ago I threw all my floaters out including the duckweed. I have come to the conclusion that the light on my Fluval spec is too strong without some kind of floating plant there and I have had the best luck with duckweed.

 

[Raith]

You're thinking of some other floater, salvinia roots don't get that long at all, frogbits do, same with DWL (and they can get menacingly big if unchecked). I've kept different salvinias over the years and their roots don't get big, you should look into salvinia cucullata, it is adorable.

 

[jeffkrol]

Hi all. I'm looking for a sandwich bag full of normal size, not giant, duckweed. Just enough for a 5 gal tank. Anybody?

You will only need like 6 of them. ...I'm sorry I just threw out about a pound (wet weight) of the weeds that have infected my tanks.

In a week or so should have another couple ounces of it.

Every infection I've ever had was from buying plants with no visible duckweed on them (or missed it)..

Take the above w/ a bit of sarchasm, actually like it a LITTLE.

 

[kwal83]

Raith...it is definitely salvinia, and the only tank in my 11 years of keeping various tanks that the salvinia roots get that long are that particular 5 gallon. The same salvinia from the same shipment that is in my 40 gallon tank don’t get roots any longer than half an inch. They were easily 3” long in the 5 gallon. I still have some of it left and will measure the roots tomorrow.

jeffkrol...everyone tells me how invasive duckweed was in their tanks and that’s why they don’t like it but I didn’t have that problem.

 

[kwal83]

This was what the salvinia looked like on March 10 after I removed half of it. The betta wouldn’t move off the bottom because he couldn’t.

 

[TDoyle]

I just ordered some from an etsy vendor. Fingers crossed...

 

[kwal83]

And I’ve seen salvinia cucullata before and it is nice. If you have any idea where I could get some feel free to share.

 

[greenguppy]

You could try eBay I have had good luck there or on aquabid.

Sent from my KFONWI using Tapatalk

 

[jeffkrol]

jeffkrol...everyone tells me how invasive duckweed was in their tanks and that’s why they don’t like it but I didn’t have that problem.

Do you run low Nitrates?
Just a guess..

 

[kwal83]

jeffkrol...I have no idea. I don't test for anything. Years ago I used to but the opinions on what everything should be varied so much it took the fun out of it. The plants in the 5 gallon are always good growers and healthy unless I mess with the floating plant colony too much like remove too much at a time and there's a sudden large increase in light. Now, the 40 gallon is a totally different story.

I found a huge variety of floating plants on Etsy so I will just order from there. I actually never would have thought to order from there for aquarium plants. Ebay is hit or miss and I've had instances where they went and pulled the plant out of a pond (hornwort) and I consequently had about 10 mosquito larvae attached to 3 of my platies 2 days after I bought it. It's real fun trying to net fish and keep them still enough to pull the larvae off with a tweezers. Thanks for the replies everybody!

 

[Raith]

I am struggling to believe you're having such a hard time trying to find duckweed! I have kept salvinia over the years and have NEVER seen it with long roots, I wonder what causes that. Hope those Etsy duckweed works out for you, good luck, OP!

 

[kwal83]

Thanks Raith. For now I trimmed the roots of the salvinia that I had in there and put them back in and I’ll see how long it takes for them to grow back out. It might be worth just keeping the salvinia colony I have and trimming the roots every now and then since it’s healthy. I did measure before I cut them though and as you can see they are 3”. It is definitely weird cause the roots are nice and tidy on the salvinia in my 40 gallon.