Treating Water Lettuce

[IsaanAussie]

Dear All,

I stumbled across a site from Texas that has a good library of treatment options for aquatic plants such as water lettuce. Hope it is useful to those with pond problems.

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/database/index/mgmt_options.htm

Isaanaussie

[Naam]

i would like to have/keep water lettuce in my pond. unfortunately whatever plants i put turn yellow after a few weeks and die. pH of pond water is rather high (~8.0) although i top it up with quite acidic water from my borewell which has an extremely low pH of only 5.5. obviously the concrete shell (meanwhile more than two years old) is still propping up the pH. any thoughts what to do? i hesitate to get the pH down by adding acid as all my other water plants look healthy.

[ozzydom]

i would like to have/keep water lettuce in my pond. unfortunately whatever plants i put turn yellow after a few weeks and die. pH of pond water is rather high (~8.0) although i top it up with quite acidic water from my borewell which has an extremely low pH of only 5.5. obviously the concrete shell (meanwhile more than two years old) is still propping up the pH. any thoughts what to do? i hesitate to get the pH down by adding acid as all my other water plants look healthy.

Naam, water lettuce requires a very high nutrient content in the water to thrive and multiply, I have been working on ways to introduce lettuce (duck weed) into our feeding regime for some time.

We grow the lettuce separately in a 20 sq met concrete pond and feed the pond heavily with animal and chemical fertilizer to maintain growth and health.

It has a phenomenal rate of multiplying so maybe it would pay you to have your duckweed (lettuce ) in a separate large earthen ware container where you can take from and feed to your fish.

We have another pond of Goldfish which are our guinea pigs and their growth rate is terrific on duckweed (at over 40% protein it should be )

[Naam]

Naam, water lettuce requires a very high nutrient content in the water to thrive and multiply, I have been working on ways to introduce lettuce (duck weed) into our feeding regime for some time.

We grow the lettuce separately in a 20 sq met concrete pond and feed the pond heavily with animal and chemical fertilizer to maintain growth and health.

It has a phenomenal rate of multiplying so maybe it would pay you to have your duckweed (lettuce ) in a separate large earthen ware container where you can take from and feed to your fish.

We have another pond of Goldfish which are our guinea pigs and their growth rate is terrific on duckweed (at over 40% protein it should be )

thanks Ozzydom but i'm still lost. i reduced my pond because i could not control the algae which developed (i was told by an expert) because of too much nutrient (id est the shÍt of my 100 kois) and inspite of that the duck weed turned yellow, shrivelled and died. about three weeks ago i filled up the reduced pond and put a variety of plants -including duck weed- in it. presently NO fish in my pond.

invariably the water turned green with algae after only 4-5 days. BUT since a few days the water is clearing up, however the duckweed starts (as before) yellowing. any solution for my dilemma?

[ozzydom]

Naam, A PH of 6-8 and full sunlight , along with appropriate nutrients including chelated iron should make ideal conditions for duck weed.

I think your problem is salt, Duckweed do not tolerate salt and as water evaporates and is replaced the salt content ratio rises. If your wellwater is anything like most well water in T,land it will be to saline for duckweed.

If you can collect rainwater from your roof for replenishment or have somewhere to store municipal water in full sunlight to dissipate the chlorine before use might be the answer.

Just another thought Naam, duckweed likes still water so if you are circulating your pond water ,it could have a detrimental effect on growth.