Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Southern Naiad. Good or Bad?

Left unchecked, the naiad and Egeria/Elodea will continue to increase while causing the water to get clearer. Thus the plants will be able to grow farther and deeper toward the center of the pond. Both of those plants are fairly easy to remove with a Lake Rake or similar wide rake with a rope attached. Both plants can spread by broken or loose fragments from raking sessions. Naiad also spreads by seeds whereas Egeria-Elodea rarely produces seeds. Egeria-Elodea tolerate low light conditoins thus they have a competitive advantage over some other submerged pondweeds. The main problem is that these weeds can spread pretty fast and raking of a one acre pond will be pretty labor intensive to keep the weeds out of the entire shallow end and "at bay" in the rest of the pond esp when they colonize deeper than 6ft. White amur - grass carp will eat both plants to varying degrees if you are interested in some biological weed control and assistance. If you use the grass carp, you should install a fence or weir to keep the GC from swimming out the overflow esp during high water or increased flows.