Beauty of Duckweed Aquarium Gardening

00:00 Beauty of Duckweed Aquarium Gardening
Reddit / aquarium_garden
Blog: rndmbits.blogs...
All my projects website www.fewdoit.com
Buy Duckweeed localy on Craigslist:
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00:05 Duckweed is one of the most common floating plants found in most freshwater lakes and ponds during summer.
It provides shelter and serves as food for zillions of critters, fish, birds and animals.
Small fish fry and critters love roaming through gentle forest of Duckweed roots.
Duckweed looks simple and beautiful!
Duckweed is the fastest growing plant I've seen in aquariums.
00:37 Duckweed needs a lot of light for growing.
Duckweed thrives in aquariums growing all year around only with added light.
Duckweed did not grow well in my paludarium with land platforms blocking the light.
00:56 Duckweed took over the entire water surface one month after I removed the platforms.
Now I have to use a floating ring to make clean water surface for feeding my fish :)
Add more floating rings to provide light for the other aquatic plants in the aquarium.
Remember, all plants need light!
And we can use floating rings for keeping Duckweed from spreading around.
01:30 I make floating rings of different sizes and various shapes.
It makes aquarium look differently.
With enough light and slow water flow Duckweed grow very fast!
01:50 I harvest Duckweed from this aquarium once a month.
Scoop Duckweed from the water surface using hair comb or such.
That is the aquarium after I harvested Duckweed.
I harvested 16oz container almost full with Duckweed.
Let's put the remaining Duckweed in the floating ring for now.
There is enough Duckweed to fill up many rings :)
Square shaped floaters fit better in standard shaped aquariums.
The fast growing Duckweed serves as a natural filter feeding on dissolved in water nutrition.
The same stands true for all plants.
Though, fast growing plants are ultimately better filters.
02:50 Another month went by and it is the Duckweed harvest time again!
I don't change water and I do not use man made filters in my self-sustaining aquariums.
Plants clean the water as they grow.
03:08 I harvest Duckweed and other plants as necessary.
Spread the Duckweed on any flat plate and let it airdry.
It could take a week or so for Duckweed to completely dry at normal room temperature.
There are some snails and scuds got caught in the duckweed.
Dry it all!
Well dried Duckweed and snails can be crashed easy with your fingers.
Mix it all with fish food flakes, preferably home made flakes ;)
Now you can feed it back to your fish.
Fish love Duckweed!
Duckweed keeps my aquariums clean and fish happy.
Have fun and happy aquariums :)

[@SanctumOfUlmo]

I love duckweed!

[@4me]

I like the way it looks from the bottom - the fluffy carpet of tiny roots with fry and snails and scuds climbing on...and rays of light coming through. It all looks like a beautiful upside-down world ☺

[@gayefanner731]

@@4me Absolutely 💯✌️

[@briandixon4931]

Excellent video about duckweed

[@4me]

@@briandixon4931 thank you very much!

[@AShoreThing]

How do you make the floating rings?

[@danielbi8840]

You can easily make it with airstone tubs or certain types of plastic straw

[@4me]

My next week video is exactly about it 😊 use plastic straws for this purpose as I showed years back: ruclips.net/video/RPYpdOynCQk/видео.html

[@Fiangard]

Do you have any tips for getting creatures out of duckweed? I keep neocaridina shrimp and don't want to scoop up baby shrimp with the duckweed

[@4me]

I had this kind "problem" a couple times with much lesser size critters - scuds. Scuds love to hang out on duckweed. Removing them all 100% is near impossible. The way I did it was using food. First I collected duckweed and put it in a container. Then I drop a floating food they like (cereal flake works for scuds) for them to eat. Wait a 5-10 minutes to let scuds gather on the food flake. Scoop the flake out with all the scuds on it and move them to the original container. Repeat multiple times until no scuds come to the food flake.
You may need to use some algae food to attract shrimps.
Wish you all the best!