Ants have decided to setup a farm in my aquaponics

[Chris McMahon]

Yes that is right ants have decided to setup an aphid farm in my aquaponics. It's amazing how fast they get going also. One day everything good and the next the ants are everywhere and they have their cow aphids roaming the planes. I am including a pic so you can see my tail of woe. What should I do to get rid of this invasion? They seem to have an under rock operation and up in the bell pepper operation going.

[TCLynx]

That's what I thought but wanted to make sure.

[Chris McMahon]

I think they are beat for the most part now. The ant bait worked on the ants so they are no longer a problem. The aphids were mostly wiped out by the spray. I have been water blasting for the last couple of days twice a day and I only see a few aphids. They are all on the underside of the leaves. I am going to blast and spray tomorrow morning. I have cut them 90% and I expect they will be defeated by Monday.

[Growzay]

Nice- now you can relax, the aphids have left the building- so to speak...

 

 

[Chris McMahon]

This is the second attack on my bell peppers this summer. The tomatoe hook worms and now ants and aphids. Well at least I got one set of fajitas out of them. You know they are good when nature starts trying to eat them.

[Carey Ma]

I like that saying..."You know they are good when nature starts trying to eat them".

Good deal but just as a reminder; please don't relax, not just yet. One can never afford to relax until the end of your season and things are cleaned and stored. Keeping your vigilance may seem boring and tiresome at times but that's the name of the game. Plan and do, then change the plan and do again. Good plan + good execution = good harvest.

 

Cheers

[Russ Grant]

I'm in the midst of battling ants and aphids. The ants have colonized inside my grow beds so over the past few days I have been flooding each grow bed until the water completely covers the gravel media resulting in ants and eggs being drowned - it was a beautiful thing. To flood the grow bed I simply placed a PVC cap at the end of the siphon drain pipe, then I sat back and enjoyed the show. I've also been using a garden hose with nozzle (and inline chlorine filter) to try and spray off aphids - this works ok. I plan to try worm tea as mentioned in this thread.

[Ernest Fields]

This also happened to me several years ago. The ants actually built a bridge and cemented it to polyethylene film. the bridge was over 1" in length across the inch gap between the tank and the Styrofoam being used to grow Oak Leaf lettuce about 3 days before harvest. Try as I might I couldn't get rid of the Aphids and their eggs. I lost the whole tank of lettuce. If you see ants sprinkle Borax in their path along with cinnamon. They will take the borax back into their nest and feed it to their Queen and it will kill her, this also works on Termites as well as Fire Ants. The cinnamon is detested by ants and they will avoid any place where it is. Sprinkle liberally. Hope you don't lose a large amount of produce. You could also try a fine spray of water with force.

Regards

Ernie Fields

[Chris McMahon]

I also lost my bed of watermelons to the ants and aphids. I ended up flooding the bed and pulling all the watermelon vines.

[lisa tran]

How did this ant removal go?

Any more info?

[Yron M. Retuta]

Wow, you've got some pretty serious aphid problem there. To get rid of the ants, you must first manage the source of their food, aphids. They have a mutual relationship. aphids produce/secret sweet sap (ant food) while ants protect the aphids. An organic approach to aphid reduction/management is chili pepper+detergent+water. spray a thin film on the suface (bottom/top) of the leaves making sure to include plants that are not affected, other wise they will just move around. Aphids don't like moist/damp conditions. Spray at dusk or dawn, when temperature and humidity is low, to avoid another problem -fungus they like it when its humid and hot.