Jack Dempseys eat live plants?

[mr.bigglesworth]

Hi all i have a heavily planted aquarium.
3 jack dempseys
1 featherfin catfish (synodontis)
1 parrot fish
1 indo datnoid
1 giraffe catfish
i have tried to put in duckweed so many times but its either
A) not growing (unlikely)
B) somebody is eating it (jd?)
I also have several sword plants two look really healthy but the 3rd has 70% torn/holey leaves. mostly torn leaves
in terms of lighting im under the 'too high' category, i dont dose co2 i dose excel and trace.
do you think somebody is eating the duckweed?
duckweed has been in the tank for almost 2 months now. i would think they would have eaten it all by now? about 80% of it is gone.

 

[fwprawn]

What kind of filter ? Could it be sucking it in ?

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

well i have a rena xp3 and a ac110 <-----this one has only been running for a few days the duckweed has been in and declining for weeks the ac110 is NOT the cause. i dont think the xp3 could be sucking it in the intake is very low pretty much at the bottom AND both filters have a prefilter sponge thats admittadly probably course enough for duckweed to pass through. recently serviced filter no duckweed or plants found.

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

Could it be the flow? i hear duckweed hates water flow, the surface area is ripply and my other floating plants which btw are doing great but getting pushed around alot. my other floating plants consist of hornwort, pennywort, 1 ripped up sword plant (uprooted), rotala indica (uprooted), riccia, several mosses, possibly some jungle val (uprooted), moneywort (uprooted, floating to re-develop roots), watersprite, and several unkown stem plants (uprooted). i would also like to mention that with all those plants floating around it would make sense all the duckweed hasnt been eaten because its tiny and it has eleventy million gazillion hiding places. but that doesnt explain why its not reproducing because from what i hear online it should be doubling every 24-48hours?

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

I know some of you consider duckweed a pest and could not fathom why somebody would say this but i want duckweed to grow faster. i enjoy taking care of my plants and i would love to have to take out 5 cups of duckweed out every week or so. that and i need it to cover the top of my aquarium so it can diffuse the light so my phosphates will go down along with my algae... <----- now this is what i really want

 

[UnstoppableJayD]

When i have extra duckweed i put it my dempsey/ altifron tank and it is always gone by the next day...the only tank it doesnt take hold in..... So yes i believe they do.

Sent from my TC970 (Wi-Fi) using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

When i have extra duckweed i put it my dempsey/ altifron tank and it is always gone by the next day...the only tank it doesnt take hold in..... So yes i believe they do.

Sent from my TC970 (Wi-Fi) using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

ok you say next day but what if it takes 2 months for 80% of it to disappear? maybe their just nibbling it? the dempseys dont seem to have an appetite anymore. they only eat 1-2 pellets/day and they are fat. its strange because none of my plants other than duckweed and 1/3 of my swords are being eaten? their are about 20 other species of live plants in their that would be much, much tastier and they dont have even a scratch on them, like bacopa, ludwigia, vals, rotala, pennywort...etc

 

[mr.bigglesworth]

Bump

 

[TacoLoco7]

I say it's the synodontis. I had a rare synodontis schall, and got rid of it because it would eat my vallisneria and amazon swords. I witness the catfish ate one of my new baby vallisneria plants when I was doing a water change. I doubt it's the jack because I have mine with the same plants as yours. And mine is 6 inches big.