Help with Identifying types of bugs

[Steve Manning]

Hello everybody. I hope some bug expert can determine what these are. My system is brand new. Maybe a month with fishes and plants. Maybe two months.

The whole system is infested with these. Even the outside of my 275 gallon fish tank you can find them crawling around. My system is outside in the open.

Can someone tell me if they are aphids or larva? There are so many of them I would need an army of lady bugs to eat them all.  I really dont want to get into spraying chemicals on my food. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!

[TCLynx]

They don't look like aphids to me.

[Kenneth J Roche']

Looks like larval stage of a white fly variant to me.

 

[Jon Parr]

I don't think it's White fly either, as you would see some adults with that many larva around. It's new to me. Are they causing harm?

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Trouble shooting small pests from blurry macro images is so fun!

I have to disagree with Kenneth, as white fly larva (that I'm familiar with) are generally much more round in shape and not so orange-ish. 

That looks like rockwool in the net pot, so I'm guessing that it's pretty moist/wet in there (net-pot)...and it seems like you have bits of old organic plant matter that has fallen into and next to the moist/wet net pot...do you happen to live in a home with a concrete slab foundation Steve?

Notice the critters are all over the old organic matter (the brown stuff that looks like miniature dried basil flowers) as well as the slightly moldy looking lower leaf of that plant...and it looks like they're pretty much congregating near the moist/wet bottom (again, unlike the white fly larva  I've seen)...

Steve, take a small pin (like a sewing needle or smaller, because it can be hard to tell from just a photo) and see if you can "threaten" one a bit. Don't squash it, just irritate it a bit and see if it is able to 'jump' or not...this would help us a lot in identifying your bugs (which I'm hoping will turn out to be harmless, but wont really know until you get back to us with the 'pin' results. Jump, or no jump...

[Steve Manning]

Vlad that's a good ideal to try to get one on a needle. I was watching them very closely when they first appeared. At first they did not seem to be causing any harm. Then they double, triple, EVERYWHERE!.  Then I noticed my perfect plants now had leaves being eating (almost looks like its rotting away).

That's when I starting really staring at them.  I saw one lift its shell/back and I saw tiny little wings.  BUT have not seem them flying... 

They look like larva.  NOW I did build a black soldier fly bucket and the fruit flies infected it of course first. Then I threw spaghetti in it to get some real flies in it. Even common house flies were better then fruit flies.  My tilapia did not eat one so I abandon that stinky bucket.   Just wondering if maybe those are fruit fly larva but I just don't know.  So I posted....

Tomorrow when I have light I will try to take a real good pic.   I'm glad I got some action on this!!

Thanks Everyone.

[Steve Manning]

"Notice the critters are all over the old organic matter (the brown stuff that looks like miniature dried basil flowers) as well as the slightly moldy looking lower leaf of that plant...and it looks like they're pretty much congregating near the moist/wet bottom (again, unlike the white fly larva  I've seen)..."

That is the crap falling from the tree. Everyday I go outside and clean that crap off and out of my system.  There is no stopping it until spring is over.  Next year I will build some kinda green house. 

[Steve Manning]

Tclynx,

I just started researching garden bugs/pests.  I agree with you.  You can not convince me they are yellow aphids.  I still plan on ordering 1500 lady bug eggs and some mantis.  Maybe the lady bugs will eat them but they are too small for a mantis.  I really dont want to spray #%!@ on my  food.    aaaahhhhhhh everyone told me in FL bugs are out of control.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

2 things to add to the library

[Kenneth J Roche']

I think Vlad has the right of it. After going thru some of my entomology text the morphology in the pics is inconsistent  with whitefly larva. I think the hop/flight test and better pics would be helpful.
 apologies for mis-direction.
Vlad Jovanovic said:

Trouble shooting small pests from blurry macro images is so fun!

I have to disagree with Kenneth, as white fly larva (that I'm familiar with) are generally much more round in shape and not so orange-ish. 

That looks like rockwool in the net pot, so I'm guessing that it's pretty moist/wet in there (net-pot)...and it seems like you have bits of old organic plant matter that has fallen into and next to the moist/wet net pot...do you happen to live in a home with a concrete slab foundation Steve?

Notice the critters are all over the old organic matter (the brown stuff that looks like miniature dried basil flowers) as well as the slightly moldy looking lower leaf of that plant...and it looks like they're pretty much congregating near the moist/wet bottom (again, unlike the white fly larva  I've seen)...

Steve, take a small pin (like a sewing needle or smaller, because it can be hard to tell from just a photo) and see if you can "threaten" one a bit. Don't squash it, just irritate it a bit and see if it is able to 'jump' or not...this would help us a lot in identifying your bugs (which I'm hoping will turn out to be harmless, but wont really know until you get back to us with the 'pin' results. Jump, or no jump...

[Jon Parr]

Maybe flower thrips?

http://hydroponicsdictionary.com/flower-thrips/

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Good call Jon. That was my "no jump" contender :)  

I now see that in Steves subsequent posts, he has given us a bit more info to go on...I was rather hoping they had no wings, put rather propel themselves along with a furcula...(little appendage that allows them to spring)...

Then again, there are thousands of species of thrips which feed on fungus (his damp rockwool conditions, and his dead fallen tree organic matter).

But had they not had wings, and had they 'jumped'...I'd would have had to go with Springtails. Which far from being a pest, perform usefull functions like eating mold off your plants and hydroton (and no guesswork as to "are they a benificial type, or a plant juice sucking mini-monster")...

Damn, we should figure out how to take bets on these kind of posts..."What's eating my Kale",... "What's this deficiency"..."what bug is this"... Maybe figure out some system of virtual beer and burgers betting points...

[Jon Parr]

Hehe, fair enough, Vald.  Since you were thinking it, and I made a stab at it, I think it's a virtual tie.  Which of course calls for a virtual beer and a burger, paid with a virtual dutch-treat.  I'm feeling virtuous.

Jon K, those look like good books, I'll have to add them to my library someday.

BTW, I hate rock wool, nothing but trouble.