Miracle-Gro Safe for aquariums?

[viboy]

Subject says it all. I have some duck weed. I think that is what it is. Small floating plant. I am going to be going camping for a week and want to add the duckweed to my aquarium for food for my silver dollars.

Right now I have it growing in a spare 10 gallon and wanted to add fertilizer to speed up the growth. I have Miracle-Gro on hand but .... Don't want to kill anything.

Thanks.

 

[plantbrain]

You can use house plant ferts for growing duckweed etc but as long as there are no fish in there. If you check the fertilizer boxes and look under what types of nitrogen, you'll find Ammonium is in all house plant/terrestrial fertilizers.

Ammonia is highly toxic and causes nasty algae blooms. If you are growing floating plants with no fish, then this is not an issue.

A tiny amount is okay, but you should use stump remove which is KNO3. NO3 can be quite high and not bother fish. Plants also like the K. Cost about 4-5$ a pound.

This you can add to fish tanks if you need more nutrients(probably not with silver dollars).
You can also grow regular veggies ina tray int he window sill and feed this to the fish. Pumpkin, melons, squash, spinach, peas etc are all good.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Leopardess]

Is the duckweed new? Duckweed is *notoriously* an invasive grower. It can double it's mass in a day, under the right conditions. I'm surprised that you're finding a need to boost it's rate of growth. As long as it gets sun, it should be growing at a fairly fast clip. I've found that it grows quicker when nitrates are a bit higher...maybe you could dose some to the tank.

Duckweed is lemna minor. There are a few pictures on here somewhere if you're not sure that's what it is.

 

[viboy]

I realize the growth potential but that is nothing compared to the appetites of my 4 silver dollars. I put a fistful size in one day and it was gone the next.

I think I will just play it safe and stay away from the fertilizers at this time.

 

[ChicoRaton]

If you wantg a lot of duckwqeed to feed your silver dollars, you could get a kiddie pool from wal-mart or the like and fill it with water and add some miracle grow or a heavy dose of PMDD or whatever kind of fertilizer you'd like. throw in the duckweed, and you should have more than enough for your silver dollars. just a thought...