How to Make an Aquatic Plant Protector

Recently, our fish had grown so big that they began eating all of our aquatic plants in our water tanks! Rather than watch our plants dwindle to nothing, we got creative. Innovation is always happening here at Growing Spaces and we have so many brilliant members contributing. With some lovely input and guidance from Claudia Stover we designed what Udgar coined the “APP” or “Aquatic Plant Protector”.

Here are instructions on how to build the Aquatic Plant Protector:

Materials

• 14 ft. of “backer rod”
• 5 ft. 6in. x 4 ft. of fine mesh netting
• Approx. 30 ft. of twine
• 3-5 small stones

This will make a ring approximately 4ft. 6in. by 3ft. You can simply increase the materials to increase the size of your APP.

1. Purchase “backer rod”, fine mesh netting and twine (if you don’t have any on hand) from the local hardware store.
2. Fashion the backer rod into a ring by tying the two ends together with twine. This is the visible floating ring you see in the photo above.
3. Sew on a very shallow net of fine meshed fabric to the ring using your twine.
4. Trim any excess net from around the outside edges.
5. Put 3-5 small stones inside the net to keep the net partially submerged
6. Transfer all the plants to inside the ring.
7. As the plants overcrowd the APP you can either:
   1. Put them into the surrounding water to recolonize that surface.
   2. Take the plants out of the tank and mix them into your garden soil.

The entire APP system costs an inexpensive $10-15

Contributors: Claudia Stover – Referral Associate and Gardening Instructor; Udgar Parsons – Growing Spaces Co-owner and Founder.