Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm thinking of growing some duckweed (in separate bucket) to feed the FT (tilipia) along with pellets. I figure, duckweed is easy to grow and would be basically free food for them. BUT, someone told me that I should be careful about it, because once in the system it can grow out of control and then start dying off, clogging pumps and GBs, then grow like crazy and take over the FT.

My thought was, I'd only put so much in that they would finish it within 5 minutes. Is there risk in doing this? Or is the risk very low?

It floats so no chance of it clogging the pump.
Most people grow it in a separate tank, if you put it in the FT the fish will eat it all and you'll have none left.
In the right conditions (plenty of nutrients) some varieties can double their biomass every 16 hours.
Unharvested, it will take over a pond and in the wild is considered invasive.
In a backyard environment it is an excellent supplement to pellets.
Some studies have shown that Tilapia grow faster on a mix of pellets and DW, than on pellets alone.

Want a bet....

Haha, yeah that's very unlike me.
As a software engineer I never give guarantees, just "Yeah that's fixed it, it _should_ work now"

As long as they eat it before it dies, it _should_ be fine and not clog the pump, hehehe.

Duckweed never gets a chance to clog my pump, the tilapia eats it like crazy, so i now grow the duckweed in two seperate wAter tubs, it grows fast...

I guess I'll have to give it a go. Maybe first few times, I'll put just a little in there, wait 5 mins then fish out with a net what isn't eaten. The only problem I can see happening is if they don't eat it and I can't get it all out, so I'll be fishing it out forever more. Then again, I have a gold fish/feeder that I could put in there to eat it if the tilipia don't

They will, I wouldn't worry too much about it, I have some floating in my koi tank, they nibble away at it, but don't like it anywhere near as much as Tilapia.
You might find the first couple of times they turn their noses up at it, especially if they have only been pellet fed before.

It does float very well and at best 1 plant becomes 2 in a day, they're not like triffids or anything.
I usually fed mine pellets in the morning and then a load of DW at night, it was pretty much all gone every morning.