Thursday, April 28, 2011

How to Get Rid of Duckweed and Watermeal

This is definitely the most boring blog post I have written to date! Yep, I think I am going to write all about watermeal and duckweed. I just hope I can keep my eyes open as I type.....Anyhow, many of you will hopefully find this information very helpful, easy to read and understand. Here we go:

To get started try to grasp this concept, it is key to learning about everything in your body of water. An organism can survive pretty much anywhere, but with IDEAL HABITAT, that organism will thrive! Basically anything alive will only thrive if it has its preferred habitat. If you want fish to thrive, give em their preferred habitat. If you want crayfish- habitat, if you want waterfowl- habitat. Basically here is a saying you need to remember "If you build it, they will come"

So as goes the habitat, so goes the organism. This is a pretty basic and very understandable and accepted statement for deer, pheasants, rabbits, and many other desirable animals. For some reason though, it is a concept that many folks just simply cannot grasp when it comes to undesirable or invasive specimens. So I have written three full paragraphs now just setting the stage for the topic at hand.

How to get rid of duckweed and watermeal? Well, the first step is to properly identify what exactly you have. The very most costly mistake folks make is to not properly ID the green stuff growing on top of their pond. Next step is to understand the preferred habitat of your species. Spend a few minutes on Google researching. Third step is to do something to change or alter the current conditions. If you dont change the conditions, the green will just come right back. Then the last step is to completely kill it out.

Watermeal is teeny tiny green dots smaller than grain of sand. They float on the surface and are blown across the pond with the wind. They are very very romantic creatures and basically just spend their entire lives making babies. Here are some pics of watermeal:




Duckweed is also small and green, but waay bigger than watermeal. Duckweed usually have 3 little tiny leaves connected together kind of like a floating 3 leaf clover with little tiny hairlike roots attached to the bottom of the leaves. They also float on top of the pond and blow back and forth with the wind. Here are some pics of duckweed:



So anyhow its getting late and I didnt get nearly as far into actual information as I hoped, but hopefully you learned something about duckweed and watermeal so far. If I get a chance in the near future to pick this topic up again I will get into habitat alterations, treatment options, and application timing and rates. In the mean time if you have any questions about your specific situation, just shoot me an email to nate@hbpondmanagement.com

1 comment:

  1. Duckweed or algae always becomes problem in my backyard pond. It creates many problem for my pond fishes. I like this blog very much!!!

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