# Duckweed / millweed



## Lundy

My pond has experienced a major bloom of duckweed/millweed the last 4-5 days.

It grew from little patches to the pond being over 1/2 covered in that short time.

I've done a bunch of research and the product of choice seems to be a flouridine product for complete control. It is very expensive.

Does any one have any actual experience with the Sonar or Avast products?


I also realize that part of the problem is the high nutrient load and years or accumulation of black muck on the bottom of the pond. I have installed aerators and I'm getting close to adding bacteria to expedite the muck digestion and nutrient load reduction. Anyone have any experience with adding the bacteria and any results, good or not?

Thanks


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## Stauff

Sonar. I tried to avoid spending that much, purchased every "cheap" alternate that was recommended, and in the end, Sonar was the only product that worked. I believe the eight ounce is the smallest size available, and that's still $190, but the sooner you get on it, the sooner the damage will be controlled. Aquatic Control in Seymour Indiana (Buy HOOSIER!) is where I get all my pond treatments, and they can get it to you in a day.
Do it now Lundy! I lost most of the better fish in my pond by fooling around with all those things that "might" work.
Stauff


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## Fishman

Flouridone is the active ingredient in Sonar, so yes Stauff is right. To sum it up, Sonar is duckweeds worst enemy and honestly the only way to go .....once ya get past the initial sticker shock of course. If ya could, post a picture of it, just to make sure there isn't any watermeal mixed in. Watermeal is probably one of the toughest aquatic vegetation out there, and is loves the same type of nutrient loading that duckweed likes. The reason I ask, is I hate to see anyone drop X ammount of dollars to get rid of your duckweed and have watermeal suddendly take off. It takes higher flouridone concentraions to kill watermeal than it does duckweed.

I have never used Avast, I have used Sonar. If I understand correctly though, both are basically chemically the same not sure on the active ingredient levels though. Sonar is very slow acting so it drastically reduces the likelyhood of a fishkill in your pond. Right now is really the ideal time to start making applications, since for the most part - cross your fingers here - rains have subsided. If you have any type of flow through it's highly recommended you wait until it stops before you make an application. Ususally ponds with constant flowthrough don't have duckweed problems - for the obvious reasons. Usually within a few weeks you'll start to notice plants in the pond turning white as they loose the ability to make chlorophyll and ultimatley die. It might just be because I'm in the industry, but I love to watch the stuff work it's magic. For you the pond owners, I'm sure you'll be biting your nails the first 2 weeks as you wait for something to happen 

As far as microbial treatments go, if you have the money to do it go for it. I rarley use microbes in my line of work because clients are generally wanting to see fast results. Microbes do work okay, just don't use them around the same time you're using chemicals. To my knowledge, flouridone will not kill bacteria... but you'll be stressing the oxygen levels in your pond to begin with. My recommendation would be, make the Sonar treatment now rid yourself of the stuff, and start with the microbes early next year and continue it as long as you see fit.

Aquatic Control is a huge distributor of aquatic chemicals, and you will probably find your best price there. The larger the company the cheaper it should be. Mom and pop-esque places don't stock the stuff on account of price and will generally pass on the expenses of having it it shipped from the distributor to you to you. ATAC probably keeps it in stock, I know we do as well. In all honesty, prices are going to be the same about anywhere you look. No one makes money selling Sonar, because it's to damn expensive to begin with


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## Lundy

Thanks Stauff and Fishman,

You both confirmed what my hours or research lead me to believe.

Fishman,

I am having surgery next week and don't know how well I will be able to perform the application. Who do I speak to to get a price on the sonar application. AND at the price of Sonar I want to ensure the proper dosage and application.

I will take a couple of pics, the vast majority is duckweed with the trailing roots, some may be watermeal, and probably is considering they thrive in the same environments.

The water flow into the pond is zero unless we have heavy rains like we did in June. Hopefully we will have a dry August to allow the Sonar to do it's job.

I've had the aerators running since April and want to add whatever to help reduce and eliminate the years and years of bottom sediment sludge. 

About 1/2 of the pond is lined with cattails also. We have started pulling them up, roots and all, they come up pretty well as soft as the bottom is. It will take a long time but I would rather do that than chemically kill them and just add more dead rotting vegetation to the pond

I finally got rid of my 12 geese 2 days ago. They came back today but a little chasing with the 4 wheeler and a few bottle rockets and they flew away again. When does the early goose season start, September? 

This pond will take me a long, long time to get it where I want it.

Thanks again


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## Fishman

You should be able to find Sonar at any Lake Managment company. The sponsor of this particular forum sell's the stuff (I assume!), but then _again_ lot's of places do  Sorry can't help myself  How big is the pond and what is the average depth, the easiest way to figure that is just deviding the max depth in half. It's okay to overshoot a bit in my option, because after all your making an expensive treatment to begin with. The last thing you want is to spend X ammount of dollars and have it do nothing. From there we determine the acre footage (approx 330 thousands gallons of water per acre foot) of your pond and calculate how much Sonar is required for your pond.

In my experiance, this is what I would expect out of Sonar: 2 weeks into the treatment the duckweed will being to die/whiten out. After approximatley one month it will begin to drop. Surface coverage will be drastically reduced. Within 2 months it usually looks fantastic. I think the flouridone residual sticks around 180 days or so, so any reintroduction/reproduction that occurs will be curtailed. Provided it's never reintroduced you will rid yourself of it entireley for the forseeable future. After a year or so , once a duck lands in the pond, with it on it's feathers the process starts all over again. Running those geese off is a great idea  From what I've seen though... it usually never comes back. We sonared a pond at work, it has an rediculous nutrient load (hundreds if not thousands of Koi now and a past Lotus nursery), constant water fowl travel, fair flow through, and it's duckweed free now for 4 years. Granted the pond is a Koi production pond.

If you want to wage war with your cattails, after a sonar treatment is a great time to do it. Wait until the cattails show signs of flouridone poisoning and make a treatment. For the most part, cattails will not be killed by flouridone concentrations high enough to kill duckweed, but it will make them extremely sick. Some cattails will turn completely white, but survive from nutrients from the roots, some will turn white near the center of the stalk but persist. Either way use a glysophate product and rid yourself of them, or spray what you want to be officially gone.

I use AquaPro:
2oz aquapro
2oz Cide-Kick 2
1 gallon of water

Spray on a nice sunny day, after the dew has evaporated. In 2 weeks, if you're concerened about excessive detrital build up(dead vegetaion) just hack the blades off at the waters surface and toss'em. Otherwise you can leave'em to rot. In your situation I would recomment removal. In most cases I would expect one to have to make multiple treatment's on cattails. But seeing as they'll be sick you'll probably get away with one or two treatments.

Lastly, Sonar treatments are extremely easy honestly. If you want, I could have my boss contact you about making a treatment but it's fairly easy. Esentially you want to try to distribute it as evenly possible, but you are treating on a concentration basis. In theory you could just pour the ammount in at one spot and forget it, but just to be extra safe... it's a good idea to dilute it first and apply it with by a sprayer or by 5 gallons buckets full of solution spaced out evenly around the pond. You don't have to spray it on the duckweed, just get good all around dispersal around the pond. Depending on the lay of your land and how the pond sits on it, it should honestly be relativley easy.


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## Lundy

It was clear of any significant vegitation a week ago.


























Now I have this


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## hang_loose

Lundy, beautiful place you have there. Its amazing how fast that stuff took over your pond. I hope you get rid of the duckweed faster than it took to grow there.

Good luck on your surgery.


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## Fishman

Wow, amazing work catching the photo from a week before. Pretty amazing isn't it! You're in the clear for watermeal


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## Lundy

Now for the rest of the story.

I had my knee replacement surgery a few days after I started this thread. I did not add any Sonar, the pond got worse and worse.

After a while the duckweed dissipated and watermeal took over in a big way covering 75&#37; of the pond at all times. It finally was hit by the cold weather just a few weeks ago to disappear at least temporarily.

There is no doubt that I have both duckweed and watermeal plus the regular algae and cattail problems to deal with next spring.

I will be ready with the appropriate treatments, I plan on having someone(pond business) out that can prescribe the correct course of action.

I do not want to go through another year like the past one.


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## [email protected]

Do you have grass carp in your pond?

Are you getting a lot of lawn fertilizer runoff?

Sounds like a good idea calling in the pros.

I hope your knee is doing well.


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