BUGS!

[Tom & Caitlin Maupin]

Hello all!

Thanks for allowing us to join the community. We're rather new to the AP field, our set up is about a year old now.

Our current issue is nothing is growing and we have these annoying little bugs. After researching and getting up close & personal with these bugs I'm pretty sure they're "drain flies." I really do not want to remove the ton of pea gravel to clean the bed if not necessary. What is a way we can get rid of them that is tested and true. It's an open media bed, no green house. Our fish have done great since day one but we moved in December & lost all of our pepper plants. They're looking pretty pathetic.

Any tips in regards to anything would be great as we're still learning. When I can figure out how to upload pictures of the bugs & our bed I will :)

Have a great day! God Bless!

One pic I could add was our bed when we first built it. We took the screen top off last summer because we realized the bees weren't getting in to pollinate the plants. It was there to keep the mass amount of pesky rodents out that were out west.

[Tom & Caitlin Maupin]

here's different pictures.

[Keith Rowan]

fungus gnats.. i used beneficial nematodes (they attack the fungus gnat pupa), and yellow sticky traps to monitor

 

[Alex Veidel]

You know, I've heard spinosad might work for drain flies...I'd go ahead and give it a try. Quite safe for fish. (Just don't dump the concentrate in the water.)

http://www.amazon.com/Monterey-LG6135-Contains-Spinosad-32-Ounce/dp...

[Glenn]

Insects large and small near our fish are almost pure protein and are FREE.

We try to attract as much of that free feed as possible to our fish tanks using yellow bug lights and pieces of over ripened fruit. Watermelon works great.

In the kitchen when gnats and fruit flies are at their worst (near our under sink compost bucket mostly), my wife keeps a small clear plastic container with a tiny hole in the top and a bit of fruit half submerged in apple cider vinegar. Quite a few of the pesky bugs concentrate in there and get washed, dried, and added to the fishes menu and or compost mix.

There are several "bug light fish feeders" on the market and some build it yourself instructions online.

I hope this helps and that your system is up and successfully growing plants soon.

[Tom & Caitlin Maupin]

thanks guys.. we bought some nematodes yesterday but didn't get around to applying them last night. what is the best way to apply them to a media bed? our bed is constant flow but the water level is just below the top of the rocks. (we're working on setting up flood & drain) can we just mix it in a bucket with some water and pour it into the gravel or should it be sprayed with like a water bottle sprayer?

[Keith Rowan]

i rec'd mine in "sponges" - i soaked them as directed and applied the water directly to my growbeds

[Tom & Caitlin Maupin]

yeah our doesn't have very good instructions. it's a plastic container full of brown stuff. it just says to mix with water and put on the garden. also, is there a certain amount of water that we mix it with? or just enough to make it smooth to pour or spray in?

[Keith Rowan]

i have 4 growbeds, so i added about 4 cups of water, then each growbed got 1 cup (just made it easy to "divide" it up)