help! Aphids!

[christina soulia]

Our @ 5x4 grow bed has been over run by root aphids and regular aphids. I have tried spinosad and soap but everytime I seem near to eradicating them the fish seem unhappy from the amount of stuff I am using to try to get rid of them (?). The fish are 4-5 inches long, 20 of them. I guess my question is do I need much vegetation up top at this point or can I cut it back hard to help get rid of these %$^%#^$ bugs?

thanks!

Christina

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

Have you seen ants around your grow bed, they will bring the aphids to the party and farm them so you may want to treat for ants around your system. Also, you don't need any vegetation up top as it is the bacteria making the water safe for the fish, so you could remove all the plants. If your nitrates get above 100ppm just do a water change.

[Alex Veidel]

Is your system indoors or outdoors?

[christina soulia]

indoors

[Keith Rowan]

i had pretty good luck with ladybugs on my indoor system..

i think bti (mosquito dunks) kills root aphids, but i'd double check that

[christina soulia]

wouldn't mosquito dunks also kill the fish?

thanks

Keith Rowan said:

i had pretty good luck with ladybugs on my indoor system..

i think bti (mosquito dunks) kills root aphids, but i'd double check that

[JoAnne Bell]

Root aphids (aka plant lice) are  tough to eradicate. We have them in our system at the store. For the past 2 weeks, I've been using Mosquito Bits/Dunks, MicroLift Biological Mosquito Control and Nematodes to control them. They have reduced the population significantly but we still have a lot of adult bugs. And, the fish (tilapia 6"-14" long) seem to be doing fine. 

Since these are all biological controls that attack the larva, it may be that we'll see the true impact in a few more weeks. Once the adult bugs reach the end of their lifecycle.

I also suspect that like all other organic controls that these products will only reduce the population low enough that we no longer see plant damage. So I'll have to periodically (once a month?) add more nematodes, etc. to keep the population low. Just as I spray the underside of the leaves weekly to control regular aphids, thrips, mites, etc.

[christina soulia]

Thank you JoAnne:)

JoAnne Bell said:

Root aphids (aka plant lice) are  tough to eradicate. We have them in our system at the store. For the past 2 weeks, I've been using Mosquito Bits/Dunks, MicroLift Biological Mosquito Control and Nematodes to control them. They have reduced the population significantly but we still have a lot of adult bugs. And, the fish (tilapia 6"-14" long) seem to be doing fine. 

Since these are all biological controls that attack the larva, it may be that we'll see the true impact in a few more weeks. Once the adult bugs reach the end of their lifecycle.

I also suspect that like all other organic controls that these products will only reduce the population low enough that we no longer see plant damage. So I'll have to periodically (once a month?) add more nematodes, etc. to keep the population low. Just as I spray the underside of the leaves weekly to control regular aphids, thrips, mites, etc.

[JoAnne Bell]

You're welcome!

[Scott Fonte]

Increasing temperature to 90d+ for a period of 3-5 days has been shown to cause sterility in peach aphid juveniles. An extreme measure, but effective.  Since aphids are hermaphroditic it only takes one to survive but it may be a useful tool.

You can take your plants out without harming you fish, but depending on the rate of feed and system size you just may have to do some water changes to keep water quality within acceptable parameters.

[Alex Veidel]

Increasing your temperature might cause them to reproduce with wings too.....