blanketweed

I have a small pond that attracts newts, frogs and other wildlife.  Despite having oxygenating plants, floating plants, a barley straw bag, a solar powered oxygenator and using biological products from garden centres I am still removing blanketweed by hand. Is it worth investing in a small pond pump filter system, or will I find that I'll always need to remove blanketweed by hand?

Hi Rose

I too use barley straw and have plants and a waterfall but I still get blanket weed. I just  continually remove it and as the season progresses it goes away. Just don't let it take over and avoid chemicals!!

Chris D.

blanket weed grows well if there is excess nutrients in the water to combat this these nutrients would need to be removed by either changing large volumes of water (which can be dangerous to organisms and hard work) or by added more faster growing plants to outcompete the blanket weed for the excess nutrients also a filtration system would aid the break down of ammonia into nitrates which would increase the amount of 'fertiliser' in the water however the water movement would make it harder for the blanket weed to get a good foothold  all types of algae hate water movement so moving water is benificial i would

add a filtration pump to aid the nitrogen cycle and increase water movement

clear as much blanketweed by hand as possible

add more fast growing plants 

remove any dead or decaying matter 

good luck

hi folks! i had a large raised pond, but have now filled it tin and made a smaller sunken one to hopefully attract more wild life. I suffered with blanket weed terribly, but bought a prodect of the web called BLANKET ANSWER. It was fantastic! only 2 treatments and pond was clear all year. It states that is is not harmful to wildlife and pond plants. my fish were perfectly happy and so were my plants. i would highly recommend this product! I had a large pump so it needed cleaning every few days to get rid of dead blanket weed, but you could fish it out by hand if your pond does not have a pump. Hope this helps! 

I wish I could get blanket weed on my little pond. I would dry it out and use it for a mulch around plants.