Goodbye Blanket Weed

 

Yippee!

The tadpoles are eating the blanket weed.

I’d been watching it carefully in this recent glorious weather. It was expanding exponentially and clumps of it were starting to float like the mythical green islands of Shangri-La.

Then one day I came downstairs to look and all these floating islands had gone. Gone too were the long filamentous stands that had clung to the sides.

The tadpoles are at the fat stage. They are still without legs and are munching through the blanket weed like it’s a fine salad. They have grazed all the blanket weed from the higher level of the pond already and are flocking to the lower levels. There are a lot of these greedy hungry mouths now eating the rest of the weed.

This is great as I’ve broken all the, ‘How to have a blanket weed free pond rules.’

For example I have been adding tap water.

According to the rules this is not a good thing to do. But I did it as I thought it would put cooler water into the pond and slow down the growth of blanket weed that likes warm water.

This together with the voracious hunger of the tadpoles has got it under control so it’s now reduced to a green carpet edging the lower sides of the pond.

Bravo tadpoles!

My pond seems to have three types of tadpoles:

There are the verticals that swim up from the lower levels and grab a bite of oxygen before descending again.

There are the horizontals that swim from end to end, lonely and aloof.

Then there are the socials who group together wherever the water is warmer rubbing as close to each other as possible and aligning their tails as if trying to swim beyond the edges of the pond.

And I would watch them for hours if it wasn’t for the wolf spiders that patrol the edge.