Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We started growing duckweed in our system 1 week ago and it's doing great. I added it to a space in one of our new float beds that wasn't being used. Here's what we did:

-Harvested duckweed from a pond down the road by simply scooping it up with a bucket

-We put the duckweed directly into an empty space in a float bed. The float bed drain is located at the bottom so the water at the top flows slowly. We're growing our duckweed inline with the system because just like a normal plant it needs nutrition to grow. The added benefit is that duckweed is great at filtering out heavy metals, such as mercury, from the system.

-We left it alone for a week and it grew into the entire space that it was in. I think we have about 8 times the amount of duckweed now as when we started and it's only been 1 week!

-The fish love it. They're usually fed commercial pellets so I was concerned that it would take them a while to adjust to the new food, but they took to it immediately!

-This is a great addition to our system. We're located in the Dominican Republic and getting any kind of supplies is always an obstacle. Producing our own food for our fish is big step in our continued expansion.

-I'll get back to everyone about this more once we start doing it on our new commercial system.