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Blanket Weed


Gila_fish

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Blanket weed is a filamentous algae. It is long and stringy and found commonly in ponds. The usual causes of blanket weed are high pH (alkalinity) and high phosphate levels. It can be removed manually by winding it around a stick, or rake, like candy floss. This only controls it though and doesn't get at the cause.

If the pH is high - why is it so? An African tank needs a high pH but not a community tank. If your blanket weed is in a pond, what is the pond made of? Is there any unsealed concrete? Are there limestone chips or rocks around the pond that would leach into the water through rain run-off? Have you any shells in the tank or pond?

Get a test kit to measure your phosphates. You can get phosphate removers to remove excess phosphate if this is the problem.

Pondcare Algaefix is supposed to be effective on blanketweed and won't harm the other plants but I cannot personally vouch for that as I have not used it myself.

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  • 6 years later...

here's an old thread I found.... :sage:

I have some of this weed in my outdoors bug pond. It grows slowly and stays on the bottom like a sunken green cloud. The pond is made of plastic and while it started with tap water it has had a lot of rain lately. I think it started in one of my original buckets but I kept it as I thought it might be Nitella (obviously it isn't) or was a signal that the pond was healthy.

Should I get rid of it or is it food for the micro-bugs?

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here's an old thread I found.... :sage:

I have some of this weed in my outdoors bug pond. It grows slowly and stays on the bottom like a sunken green cloud. The pond is made of plastic and while it started with tap water it has had a lot of rain lately. I think it started in one of my original buckets but I kept it as I thought it might be Nitella (obviously it isn't) or was a signal that the pond was healthy.

Should I get rid of it or is it food for the micro-bugs?

It will become more of a problem Sophia so if you can fix it it will make life easier.

Mine took over within a few weeks and is now a mess.

A common way to treat blanket weed is using Barley Straw.

You can buy barley straw extract but in your critter pond I would be more inclined to source a small quantity of straw and put it in a stocking or filter bag and hang it in the pond. It will not harm the critters in the pond, infact the opposite, it will provide a nice new food source while its controlling the Blanket weed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningadvice/helen-yemm/7597566/Barley-straw-and-blanket-weed-Helen-Yemm.html

I have not tried the above yet myself but have been meaning to for a while. That thing people talk about called "procrastination" is stopping me from doing it. Who invented procrastination? Ill get round to looking it up one day :sage:

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Thanks for the link. I will see if I can find some of that straw and if not, give my green cloud a haircut.

That thing called procrastination is currently affecting my sewing project, I should be sitting at that table, not this one :roll:

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  • 7 months later...

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