Wild duckweed?

[bettafishlover86]

I am at a family members house and noticed there little pond had a lot of ducked. I put some in a plastic cup to bring home. Is there a way I can make it safe to put in my aquarium?

 

[DoubleDutch]

Yes (if it is free from critters) but be aware you won't hardly get rid of it when you wish to.

 

[Rocky998]

I am at a family members house and noticed there little pond had a lot of ducked. I put some in a plastic cup to bring home. Is there a way I can make it safe to put in my aquarium?

You could try doing a 1:20 bleach to water ratio and putting them in there for a bit and then soak them in water with a double dose of dechlorinator... But me personally I would just leave them lol.

 

[Uberhoust]

I have done exactly what @Rocky998 has suggest successfully with duckweed I collected from one of the local ponds near my home. The duck weed grew very well and was my most successful floating plant, for some reason I tend to kill floaters. My only caution would be it is duckweed, it caused a lot of issues with my filtration system and it took a bit to get rid of the issues. (I have different filters now and I am thinking of trying again with it).

I personally use a 20 to 1 bleach dip for all plant introductions to my aquariums. 1 minute for sensitive plants up to 2 minutes for almost everything else. I use three buckets for the job located in an area where if I drop a bit of bleach solution it is not the end of the world.
1. The bleach solution, I use a timer, gloves, and swish the plants around, being careful not to break stalks. Do not do too many plants at a time.
2. When the timer goes off I immediately dip the plants into a stronger than normal dechlorinator solution. Swish them around. I don't really know if this does anything, because I don't know if the standard dechlorinators will actually break down or bind with the Hypochlorite ion. In lack of evidence, I will use a bit of caution. This dip is only long enough to get the solution on all surfaces of the plant.
3. Final dip or fresh water rinse either in a bucket or under running water.

One thing I noticed with the Bleach dips is that dead plant tissue is much more sensitive to the bleach and tends to soften more, making it easier to identify making it easier prune the plants of dead or dying tissue before planting.

You can overdo it. By accident I ended up with too high a concentration of bleach closer to 1 in 5, it set my jungle vals back by a lot. In some cases I was planting root collars with only one or two small leaves, but all the plants recovered though initially quite slowly.

 

[StevenF]

I have done exactly what @Rocky998 has suggest successfully with duckweed I collected from one of the local ponds near my home. The duck weed grew very well and was my most successful floating plant, for some reason I tend to kill floaters.

Duck weed is ver small plant so it needs a very small amount of nutrients to grow. Larger floating plant need more nutrients. duck wed doesn't need much light and it gets CO2 directly from the air . So if you have problems with floating plants the likely cause is lack of nutrients. You probably need a fertilizer to succeed with larger floating plants.

 

[NearMeBettas]

I rinse it off with aquarium saltwater lol. Same for my mosquito larvae.

 

[Boundava]

Strong caution with duckweed. It is very easy to grow, it is very easy to spread around multiple tanks, it is nearly impossible to get rid of. I had duckweed and thankfully I don't have duckweed any longer. Well at least not the little duckweed, I do have giant duckweed but that's not as hard to get rid of as the smaller one. I would never recommend for anyone to get duckweed. There are other floaters that will work just as well or floating plants if you're looking for that type of topwater cover or something to suck up nutrients.