Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Photo 7: A tub of duckweed to feed your fish
You may decide to attempt growing duckweed in a container near your farm to feed your
fish and help add extra protein to your fish's diet (Photo 7). We use a separate duckweed
growing system that provides the duckweed we use for our fish. The protein in duckweed
ranges from 15% to 45% under optimal growing conditions.
Duckweed is the smallest flowering plant on earth. (Google search it for more information
or visit links at bottom of this section). Under ideal conditions, duckweed doubles in
volume every 36 hours.
When we have it available, we feed our fish one small handful of duckweed per fish tank,
every day. The next day, when it's time to harvest more duckweed, the duckweed tank or
tray is full again. Amazing stuff. It looks like algae, but it is not. Duckweed is very com-
mon on ponds, quiet streams and heavily watered areas. Plant nurseries often have duck-
weed, so call around to find a couple of tablespoons to start your own duckweed system.
Occasionally, add hose water or a very small amount of fish tank water to maintain water
depth.
PLEASE NOTE:
We
do not
profess to be experts at growing domestic-raised duckweed
(and we don't know of any success stories for domestic raised duckweed). In fact, quite
the opposite is true. We affectionately refer to ourselves 'duckweed assassins' because we
regularly
kill entire tanks full of duckweed without ever knowing WHY. We have grown
duckweed in containers and open-air tanks off-and-on for many years and we have not al-
ways been successful in our efforts
to maintain
our duckweed farms, but we keep trying
and we continue to experiment to find the answers to pass along to you.
Our farm-raised duckweed seems to grow well for days, weeks and sometimes even
months
, and then for some unknown reason, it begins to die off in the grow tanks and then
it disappears altogether. We have experimented with different duckweed varieties, as well
