Aquaponic Gardening

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One of our systems has been full of a bunch of little black bugs.  

2 Questions

1.  If I spray it with worm tea will this get rid of them?  

2. Can you spray worm tea on food you plan to eat in the future like lettuce?  

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Others more experienced can describe active treatments that are fish-safe (spinosad?) but raising humidity is helpful culturally: as "suckers" they have to give off moisture that they take in with their food and low humidity greatly accelerates their growth.

It's outdoors in Hawaii...so I can't really control the humidity.  

Mint......I should have known that.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Vlhik2MAaA/T2Vyhy_WgVI/AAAAAAAAA9g/jGYehFxUOak/s1600/homer-simpson-facepalm.jpg

R.K. Castillo said:

They're Candy Mint.  Really good...taste like a candy cane.  

What's a good way to deal with Spider Mites?  I sprayed all the plants down with a little bit of dish washing soap yesterday but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.  

Raising humidity is a good preventative measure, but it doesn't really take care of spider mites once you've already got a problem. I've also heard of spraying your plants with high pressure water to take care of them, but there's some controversy on how well that works.

Ben Rodman said:

Others more experienced can describe active treatments that are fish-safe (spinosad?) but raising humidity is helpful culturally: as "suckers" they have to give off moisture that they take in with their food and low humidity greatly accelerates their growth.

Getting rid of spider mites might not get rid of the damage, but it will stop it from getting worse.

I do recommend spinosad for a quick fix. It's a safe, bacterial based spray that really takes care of those suckers. (I've observed the before and after with a microscope) If you want to play around with integrated pest management, I advocate the use of predatory mites. There are several species that are great for taking care of mite problems. I'm not sure what will be available in Hawaii though...

Personally, I used a mixture of p. Persimilis (which is a ravenous spider mite devourer with a very picky diet. It eats spider mites and spider mites alone, and dies soon after the supply runs out) and n. Californicus (which can go a really long time without food, lives on flower pollen, and is a great preventative). n. Californicus eats p. Persimilis once there are no spider mites to feed on. Green Methods is a distributor that is reliable and reasonably priced.


R.K. Castillo said:

They're Candy Mint.  Really good...taste like a candy cane.  

What's a good way to deal with Spider Mites?  I sprayed all the plants down with a little bit of dish washing soap yesterday but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.  

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