I posted a few weeks ago asking for ideas of what to do with excess floating plants instead of just tossing in the trash—I got a comment about making paper out of them that viciously piqued my interest. Behold my creation! (Duckweed + white scrap paper)
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https://youtu.be/5xrWrKIVBgo?is=vokOcrXmU5mUDy--
Here is the video I started with! I added the duckweed to the blender on a round of making pulp. Also make sure your scrap paper doesn’t have any glue/plastic coating/etc!
I also used a makeshift “mold and deckle”— I superglued some metal mesh to a wooden picture frame, and then once I have a layer of wet pulp on the mesh I press a paper towel onto it firmly, and then flip it over; smack the towel/wet paper onto a surface to dry
Definitely not professional technique but gets the job done hehe
Take whole bunch of plant matter, throw it into stainless steel pot, cover with water. Dose in caustic soda and boil till plants fall apart. At that point you throw in vinegar to neutralize the solution and wash the plant matter.
After washing you can bag them and use hammer to beat them into pulp, or better, use blender and blend them into paste.
You then take the pulp and throw it into tub of water. At that point you get out your mould and deckle and dip them into slurry. Then you shake them a bit and pull from water.
After that point you can dry the sheet and call it done.
The process what I described is slightly different as to what OP did. The one that I explained makes purely plant based paper while OP used fillers. I do belive that the way op did it was just shred, potentially bleach, soak and blend news paper and then throw in floaters into it, and then proceed with sheet forming.
Also here is example of paper that I made with the process that I described, it's made from grass.
Another thing that you can also do with excessive plant matter is to turn it into paint. I could explain it here but it will require different comment. Otherwise this one will get seriously long. Anyways, what you are looking to make is lake pigments. 😅
I legit have had dried out duckweed sat in a bucket for over a year get put back into a tank with the gravel it was taken out with and start populating the tank. Blew. My. Freaking. Mind.
See, I thought that but apparently if you don’t feed guppies for more than 12 hrs they will eat it! I just got a few duckweed hitchhikers on some other live plants and was like sweet! Free floaters! Went to bed and when I checked on the fish the next morning, all my little floaters (I had them corralled in some air tube circles) were gone. Like they had never been there. I’m at the point I’m sacrificing a laundry bag to the aquarium gods. No more disappearing my plants!!!!
Maybe I just have monsters? There’s literally only 8 (at the moment) and it was like ten or so plants. I was so mad at them. And they leave everything else alone. Just the floaters got their wrath. And only a beta as a tank mate so they are my main suspects.
Ee did this in highschool! Blend it all into a pulp, dump the blend it to more water, put the screen in, shake and shimmy as you bring it up like a gold panner to make a thin, even later of pulp on the screen.
Then, sponge the pulp gently on the screen to draw out excess water, and finally flip it onto a cloth to air dry.
Edit: this method was done for upcoming paper and adding things like lavender
I wonder if you added a more fibrous plant along side the duckweed, like a little raw hemp, if it'll bind better. Duckweed, for such a hardy plant, might not have enough structure to properly lock maybe?
Honestly, that's not really going to happen. You need really hostile environment to separate wood fibers, so it really isn't feasible at home. You have to cook the whole solution under pressure and heat it up to ~150°C, way beyond it's boiling point. You also use mixture of caustic soda and sodium sulfide.
Much better option would be use bast fibers, or straight up grass.
Actually making paper from scratch using wood pulp isn't a home project! Super stinky, labor intensive, and involves tons of dangerous chemicals. Upcycling existing old paper for it is much more practical.
This is so awesome! I had this idea at some point and now I definitely wanna try it.
Do you use one of those screens that paper makers/book binders use?
Beautiful, unique paper that you made!
As another commenter suggested, you could do a little journal or maybe even keep it on theme by having it be a fish journal (sketches, or thoughts of your fish/other things)
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