Duckweed For Piranha Tank?

[brandoncw]

i have thought of adding duckweed in my piranha tank to reduce light getting to the bottom of the tank as my new light is fairly bright and the piranha is now always in hiding. I've heard its great at doing that because it multiplies rapidly and will cover the top of the tank water. Its also said to be easy to grow/ hard to kill. Is this worth my time or will it be a messy nightmare?

 

[DWC]

I love duckweed though it certainly does cover the tank quickly.  I find it easy to decrease its population by skimming the surface with a small fine strainer from time to time.  I have only used it in Betta tanks (10 gallon, only surface agitation from air run sponge filters) but if you want an easy to grow floating cover it fits the description.  Dangling roots are only millimeters long so you only get surface cover, no trailing foliage to swim amongst like you would get with say water sprite or free floating elodea.
 
David

 

[brandoncw]

there is some growing in a local pond, ive thought of getting a little to get started. I'd of course quarintine it for a while and salt bathe it to kill and parisites or any other nasties.

 

[RainboWBacoN420]

I'm just gonna give you a fair warning about duckweed from experience, if you have the average intake for your filter, like the HOB filter, your duckweed can easily get sucked down towards it and clog the intake. This mostly happens when the duckweed is pushed down by the output, too. It's incredibly annoying. I ended up putting a filter sock around the intake, so that the duckweed wouldn't get sucked up by the filter, but every week turned into every day cleaning the filter sock because there was just so much duckweed! So I tried a different method... I had some spare suction cups and some airline tubing, I wedged the ends of the tubing into the hole of the suction cups and attached it inside the tank right at the surface line going across the tank from back to front to work as a bouy or guard line to keep all the floating plants away from the filter. More complications bloomed from this though. One, I would find myself constantly adjusting the tubing because the water line was always changing. Two, airline tubing is too flimsy and gets really gross looking, I ended up switching to CO2 tubing which I found a lot less flimsy and a lot easier to use. Three, since the tubing is at the water line, it makes the water still and eventually protein film will begin to form.
 
I got so tired and irritated from floaters that I ended up getting rid of it all, I got so fed up with it. I love floaters, frogbit is probably my favorite floaters, they're very attractive, but unless you have a sponge filter and smooth water, I wouldn't recommend floaters, it can become such a pain to keep. However, the floaters can really make your display look very pretty, even with the guard lines stopping the plants, sometimes a small current would sneak through and make the floaters just calmly spin in a circle around the tank, this helped with the protein film but most notably, when the moon lights came on, the shadows from the plants while they were going in circles gives such an amazing and natural look on the tank! 
 
Floaters are also typically considered nutrient hogs, not entirely sure about duckweed, but a lot of people say floaters have helped with excess nutrients to keep algae from growing, but also hogging nutrients from other plants as well, which I don't think will become a problem really.
 
So there's some pros to floaters, but a lot of cons. 

 

[brandoncw]

I'm just gonna give you a fair warning about duckweed from experience, if you have the average intake for your filter, like the HOB filter, your duckweed can easily get sucked down towards it and clog the intake. This mostly happens when the duckweed is pushed down by the output, too. It's incredibly annoying. I ended up putting a filter sock around the intake, so that the duckweed wouldn't get sucked up by the filter, but every week turned into every day cleaning the filter sock because there was just so much duckweed! So I tried a different method... I had some spare suction cups and some airline tubing, I wedged the ends of the tubing into the hole of the suction cups and attached it inside the tank right at the surface line going across the tank from back to front to work as a bouy or guard line to keep all the floating plants away from the filter. More complications bloomed from this though. One, I would find myself constantly adjusting the tubing because the water line was always changing. Two, airline tubing is too flimsy and gets really gross looking, I ended up switching to CO2 tubing which I found a lot less flimsy and a lot easier to use. Three, since the tubing is at the water line, it makes the water still and eventually protein film will begin to form.
 
I got so tired and irritated from floaters that I ended up getting rid of it all, I got so fed up with it. I love floaters, frogbit is probably my favorite floaters, they're very attractive, but unless you have a sponge filter and smooth water, I wouldn't recommend floaters, it can become such a pain to keep. However, the floaters can really make your display look very pretty, even with the guard lines stopping the plants, sometimes a small current would sneak through and make the floaters just calmly spin in a circle around the tank, this helped with the protein film but most notably, when the moon lights came on, the shadows from the plants while they were going in circles gives such an amazing and natural look on the tank! 
 
Floaters are also typically considered nutrient hogs, not entirely sure about duckweed, but a lot of people say floaters have helped with excess nutrients to keep algae from growing, but also hogging nutrients from other plants as well, which I don't think will become a problem really.
 
So there's some pros to floaters, but a lot of cons. 

Those are some of the things i was worried about, i do have a extension on my filter intake so that it reaches the bottom, i read since duckweed reproduces so fast and covers the top it does take a lot of nutrients out of the water including Nitrates, that is one of the reasons i considered it too, being that my fish receives a diet high in protein thus creating a lot of nitrates

 

[fluttermoth]

You can always make a 'ring' out of some airline to keep your floating plants away from your filter intake, or you can attach the airline to the sides of the tank with suckers to keep it at one end

 

[RainboWBacoN420]

You can always make a 'ring' out of some airline to keep your floating plants away from your filter intake, or you can attach the airline to the sides of the tank with suckers to keep it at one end

Better worded than what I said.
 
 

 

 

Those are some of the things i was worried about, i do have a extension on my filter intake so that it reaches the bottom, i read since duckweed reproduces so fast and covers the top it does take a lot of nutrients out of the water including Nitrates, that is one of the reasons i considered it too, being that my fish receives a diet high in protein thus creating a lot of nitrates
 
 

 
Duckweed is tiny, and will easily be drawn to the slightest amount of suction if pushed down by say the output of the filter. 

 

[San O Fisher]

I use duckweed in my current tank and it has probably been the healthiest in years.  I thin it out 1-2 times per week so it doesn't over grow.  The nice part about it is that if you take too much it grows back in a few days and there is not an issue.  Just a thought.

 

[brandoncw]

looking at my tank now, i have way to much water surface movement to have any floaters, the 800 gph wave maker and 400 gph hob filter make to much water movement

so much water movement that even my sand moves, little by little it make bigger and bigger dunes

 

[NickAu]

Might I suggest water sprite? One or 2 bits will quickly cover the top of your tank and its not messy like duckweed.
 
this is the top of my 2 foot tank look close thats 3 bits of water sprite under the duck weed.