Widow Maker needs root pest help!!!

Widow Maker

Well-Known Member
Hey everybody! Its been a while. Im sorry to say I havent been able to reply to any pm's. I logged on and had a million pm"s and decided to delete them all. If anyone hasnt got any help then maybe you can try me again.

Ok, so I have been using GH grow only. The stuff looks like fish emulsion. Anyways the plants have been growing fairly well but the top of the plants have turned yellow and my ph drops from 6.2 to 5.0 overnight. The new leaves are curling under pretty bad. Been at about 1000 ppm and raised it to 1250 thinking they were not getting enough nutes. Talked to a friend of mine and he said they were toxified. Told me to flush over night with pure water and if they get better then thats the problem. If they got worse then they were lacking nutes. So I flush and decide to check my sprayers, its been a month since I checked them. :(
Well to my surprise the roots were black. After closer inspection I noticed they were little bugs eating my roots. I take the lids off my buckets and try to wash them off in the sink. I got most of them off. Prolly a couple million bugs got washed away. Anyways I have no clue what these are. I am suspecting they are some sort of fly/gnat cause I have been noticing a few little flies lately. There doesnt seem like too many cause they fly into the light and die so I havent worried till now.
I added some sm-90 to my water hoping that will agitate them and I also dumped a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in my res. Im just going with what I think is right but since I dont know what the bug is I am just gambling now. lol. Any help would be great. The bug looks about 5-10x the size of a spider mite. The younger ones are white and the older ones are black. Unless I have multiple bugs. lol. I am pretty sure they are what I am seeing fly around my garden once they reach adulthood. Thanks in advance. WM

ps looked on the grow faq and the closest thing that they sounded like was fungus gnats. Said the larva was worm like and that didnt seem correct to me.
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fdd2blk

Well-Known Member
sounds like gnats. i know they have products to kill them. not sure about hydro though. i use predator nematodes. i don't know if those will live in your medium. if the gnats do though ........ there is also a product called gnatrol. i have never tried it but it's all the rage. once again i'm not sure about hydro.


some google images i pulled up.







 

Widow Maker

Well-Known Member
They dont look wormish like your pic. As far as adult thats what they look like.

BTW its an aeroponic garden with expanded clay as the medium.

I just realized I put this in the wrong section. I am a little rusty but I will try to move it to plant problems.
 

Widow Maker

Well-Known Member
Ok I took some of my new friends to the grow shop and he said they were winged thrips. Gave me some gognats and avid. We will see what happens. WM
 

daddychrisg

Well-Known Member
Gognats in a Res is nasty! It will leave a thick layer of "wax like" substance on everything.. I don't think you have Fungus Gnats by the info you have supplied, I think what you may have is root aphids... It sounds like you are growing in Aero right? Your plants are starving and I would use a foliar spray to supplement there feed for the moment. Can you take some pics? I have killed those little fuckers with a product called Bug O Buster, but the shit is toxic and you must try very small doses, and gradually raise the strength until you kill the bugs off before your plants.
 

Widow Maker

Well-Known Member
Gognats in a Res is nasty! It will leave a thick layer of "wax like" substance on everything.. I don't think you have Fungus Gnats by the info you have supplied, I think what you may have is root aphids... It sounds like you are growing in Aero right? Your plants are starving and I would use a foliar spray to supplement there feed for the moment. Can you take some pics? I have killed those little fuckers with a product called Bug O Buster, but the shit is toxic and you must try very small doses, and gradually raise the strength until you kill the bugs off before your plants.

I believe you are right. Looked it up on the internet and I think they are rice root aphids. Makes sence, I live by rice feilds. Last crop it rained real bad and some ants moved into some of my soil plants indoors. I believe the ants introduced these bastards. Good thing is they havent effected my soil plants just the water. Luckly my water is only 1/3 of my crop. The gognats knocked them out but I saw about 5-10 of them a week later. Treated again but I dont think I will get rid of them all untill I harvest and can take bleach to everything. I think I am just controling them for now. Anyone used nematodes before? I would say ladybugs but they wont be able to get to the roots through the expanded clay. WM
 

daddychrisg

Well-Known Member
Hey WM, I have not heard of ants carrying other insects into grow area's before, but I would not put it past those retched bugs to hitch hike on the backs of other insects! Sounds like you at least have the situation under control, and yes I have and do use nematodes at times. The thing is that I have not had good success with them in clay...They don't seem to be able to latch on to that medium, but in soil and coco they work great, but they don't take care of the problem right away. You have to inoculate the soil early on so they have time to re-produce and get a colony together and eat up all the little fuckers that cause damage to our plants...GL keep us posted..
 

Widow Maker

Well-Known Member
Hey WM, I have not heard of ants carrying other insects into grow area's before, but I would not put it past those retched bugs to hitch hike on the backs of other insects! Sounds like you at least have the situation under control, and yes I have and do use nematodes at times. The thing is that I have not had good success with them in clay...They don't seem to be able to latch on to that medium, but in soil and coco they work great, but they don't take care of the problem right away. You have to inoculate the soil early on so they have time to re-produce and get a colony together and eat up all the little fuckers that cause damage to our plants...GL keep us posted..

I believe the ants carry the eggs and feed off the sugars the larvae produce. Or something like that. Ants sound a lot like government to me. lol.
 

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
Mosquito Dunks in the res, only need a quarter dunk for a 30 gallon (110liter) res. The do put granules in the solution, non-toxic, your pets could drink the water. VV
 
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