Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Grass Carp: Good or Bad?

Mostly a bump.

IIRC GC will usually control lily pads, and will usually not control cattails or duckweed. WRT coontail, I do not remember, but someone here will know. If you can post a picture of the maroon stuff, perhaps one of the plant experts can give an I.D.

When you say you hate carp, do you mean you hate Common/German Carp (with their barbels, bottom-sucking mouths, and ability to reproduce large numbers of large fish), or do you mean you hate Grass Carp (with no barbels, forward-facing almost human looking mouths, available in 100% gauranteed triploid form that will not reproduce)? They are of course two very different kinds of fish. Lots of people dislike plain Carp for pretty good reasons. A much smaller number hate GC, although there are a fair number of people who have found that GC do not solve the particular aquatic plant problems that they have.

For preventaitve measures, numbers of GC as low as 2 to 5 per acre are often recommended. For remedial measures in ponds with real plant problems (which are plant species GC are likely to eat), we often start talking stocking numbers at about 10 per acre and discuss up or down from there depending on the severity of the plant problem.

I am not an aquatic herbicide user, but there a several products which can probably control the plants you want to reduce. Let's hear from the herbicide users and experts.