Duckweed buster chemicals

Any thoughts about how to eliminate the pesky pest for ever using chemicals?

I can't sluice it out, the pond is full of lilies so impossible to net it out.

 

Its actually quite good at keeping the water clear and stopping blanket weed.

I would think any chemical that works on duck weed will also kill lillies.

 

Well, there's this sort of thing, I'm not sure what it is. I really don't want duckweed.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NT-Labs-Po...e4b-a033-afc5dee52db1&pd_rd_i=B008DVY5TA&th=1

 

Good question. It wasn't there a few days ago! Nothing new has been introduced into the pond my me.

Presumably it can be dropped in by a passing bird.

 

That stuff says its pet safe, wildlife safe and fish safe, it doesn't mention plant safe.

I'm pretty sure any plants in the pond will suffer.

It says it removes phosphate, how exactly? and surely duckweed is mostly reliant on nitrogen.

 

Exactly so a forever solution might be tricky.

 

It says it helps 'control' duckweed, not eradicate it. So if it works you'll just get a bit less duckweed.
As @pete mentions if you have any lillies then they may not do well without the phosphate.

I would guess that it works by either chelating the phosphate making it unavailable or it contains something like enzymes that alter the chemistry of the phosphate - a bit like sludge-busters you can get for ponds

 

But why would duckweed a mostly non flowering plant be reliant on phosphate.

 

Hi

i have goldfish and they eat it

 

duckweed is native and everywhere so even if you get rid of it itll eventually come back.

all organisms need phosphate as it is used in DNA. if the pond has fewer nutrients duckweed will grow slower but so will your lillies. hard to be selective!

 

I don't know, but would guess that as it's a simple plant that multiplies quickly, any disruption to its environment would cause stress and degrade its ability to multiply at such speed.
I can't think of any other way it would work, but I'm not a botanist.

 

This is an email from NT Labs, who make the duckweed control agent I mentioned

Hi Howard,

Unfortunately I can't guarantee that your water lilies won't be affected by our blanketweed balance product. It is a chemical treatment that has an agent that will disrupt the way the duckweed photosynthesizes. Duckweed does have a lower tolerance for this agent than other plants, but I cannot guarantee that it won't affect your lilies.

Kind regards,

Ieva Grybauskaite BSc (Hons).

QC Technician at NT Labs.

 

When I first built my pond I ended up using an agaecide .
Big mistake it killed all plant life in the pond and started a chain reaction that actually made the problem worse.
I never use any chemicals in my pond these days and it mostly looks after itself regarding water quality, what may not look like our ideal of how a pond should be is quite often just what wildlife is looking for.

 

I used this product a few years back and it was very successful - and the duckweed has still not returned. I didn't notice any effects on the water lilies but I wasn't monitoring them.

 

When I had a problem with duckweed I used a hose to push the duckweed to one end. A strong spray was enough to move it past lily leaves without damaging them. I certainly didn't get all of it, but did manage to reduce it a lot.