Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Pondweed

Hotbug - Your pond is small at 0.08 ac at about 3500 sqft.
As esshup says some AmPondweed varieties can have shorter leaves. IMO one grass carp might eat too much of the vegetation after about 2 years and all the pond weed is gone. Bad idea IMO. I don't think tilapia will eat the Am.Pondweed. TP don't eat what little pondweed that I have.

First thing to consider with your tiny pond is buy a Weed Razor or similar brand of weed cutter. Lake Rake type tools are not good for pulling out by the roots submerged rooted pond vegetation. The Weed Razor gets the pond weed stems cut and the plants then float and can be removed. Removing the cut weeds gets them out and does not result in accumulating dead weed bottom muck and nutrients that would occur with chemical treatment. – IMO a big plus in a little pond. The weed cutter is tossed out to cut at 3ft wide strips. You can cut a lot of pondweed in 30min - 1 hr and enough good widths to get one or two fishing spots. Then when you rest up after a few days,,,,, go out and cut out another couple spots for angling. If you cut the areas 2-3 times a few to several weeks apart the pondweed in those areas may die out until a couple years later it recolonizes those cut spots.

I like my weed razor. It is razor sharp, comes blade guards and with a sharpener. Handle it very CAREFULLY. I cut my finger with it. It is also good for cutting cattails and reeds.

Also consider using granular herbicide. Note the herbicide kills the weeds to sink, die, and create bottom muck.
Aquacide Pellets as a 2-4D is an option.
Aquathol Super K 1-2 lbs should treat the whole 0.08 ac pond if I read the label correctly.
You should be able to spray the surface pondweed leaves with a solution of Diquot liquid 37.3% sold in quarts such as Harvester, Tsunami, or Reward. As a test spot spray for the Am Pondweed,, Mix up 1 ounce per quart of water and spray a patch of the Am. pondweed leaves. You are testing to see it works,,, the leaves should be brown, dead in a week. If it did not work contact me via Private Message. What mixed up solution of Diquat you did not use on floating pondweeds, spray it on some land growing weeds you want to kill. It should also kill them to brown tops quickly. Note it does not kill the weed roots very good – just mainly the tops. Diquat is IMO a cheaper option than the granular specialty aquatic herbicides, plus you can use Diquat on killing land based grasses and weeds. Keep it far away from tomatoes. In water diquat breaks down quickly 1-2 days but diquat is slow to degrade in the land soil.