Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Beltie

Although it is frowned upon here, if the ants are the ones that go for sugar the best is borax, brown sugar a dash of honey and hot water. Place a few drops in a container (beer bottle cap is my favourite) on the trail to the GB's. Renew when its all gone.
Gokul is right however, if you have aphids or scale another nest will find the food source.

I'll bet you can use CoCo -Wet as surfactant (wetting Agent) instead of soap. It's safe for Organic plants.


IF Rinsed well; couldn't you just treat and flood to waste?

I guess at this point the Question is: are you protecting the fish or the build up bacteria culture within the grow beds themselves? I assume both, but fish Death is much more than a miner reduction in the cultured bacteria.

Could this be a managed trade off?

Also un-cooked rice has been shown effective on ants and such, same method- pops their belles. The trick is to keep it dry. Worker ants will take to the Ant Queen. When she pops & dies, it kills the hill/colony and they move on. We use rice on fire ants a lot.
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Data:
Coco-Wet
All Natural
Wetting Agent
A non-ionic surfactant and spray adjuvant (spreader sticker) from the good folks at Spray-N-Grow. All natural, does not contain alcohol or petroleum distillates. Coco-Wet improves and promotes wetting: it increases sticking and absorption through the leaves of any gardening product to which it is added. That increases the effectiveness of fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, etc. Coco-Wet All Natural Wetting Agent.

This is especially important on plants with foliage that is waxy and hard to wet. Coco-Wet is a multi-purpose adjuvant (or wetting agent) manufactured from naturally occurring sapofins.

Coco-Wet is not a plant food product, but greatly enhances the up-take of foliar feeds such as liquid fertilizers and micronutrients. Add 1/2 teaspoon of Coco-Wet per gallon (1 ml per liter) of liquid fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. Contains 90% Modified Cocodiethanolamide and 10% inactive ingredients.

Due your research on surfactants! I was looking into that when I was looking at store bought ammonia and in my research, it showed that surfactants, while they are organic, are harmful to aquatic things and that includes fish and bacteria!

http://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/STP ... 10279S.htm

This is just one web site but there are dozens that warn there could be problems with surfactants. It's better to be safe than sorry. I found an pure ammonia source (NH3 and nothing else).

Surfectant is basically a suffocatant ( yes I inventedthis new word) for fish.

Just a few drops of dishwashing liquid will kill all the fish in a tank.

P.S Suffocant,,,a chemical or product that causes suffocation:)

Before we turn this into an urban myth, and there are a few on the forum, are we sure of the facts? While the reduction of surface tension, as Chappo and Angie have pointed out, can create difficulties the amount involved, lets say we are using lethecin, would only be a few drops in the mixture, to be sprayed, onto the plants affected. The amount reaching the FT, if it does would be exceedingly small.

I aint gonna try it, and its true coz Steve said so

Nocky, I found the garlic spray I made ages ago didn't do a thing, I even added coffee to the mix to try and keep the cabbage moth away.
I boiled garlic and my left over coffee grinds together, strained the mix and all I got was bad smelling ADHD caterpillars

Oh no! Snorting port again

Are you sure your suppose to boil the garlic????
I have used a garlic / chillie spray with fair success,,,if you've ever tried Thai Chillies you know what killed the bugs:) they're SO HOT that I used to get blisters on the inside of my lips!!!!,,,going to have a leak always involved plastic gloves etc etc,,I think you get the idea.

Don't forget good old tobacco,,,excellent pesticide.

Not sure if your supposed to but I did, didn't really work so maybe not.

As to tobacco, I know a great way to teach dogs not to take baits using it, other than that I'll keep smoking the stuff.

I have now tried food grade DE powder over some areas of grow beds that were infested with ants. I dusted them yesterday and today I see no signs of ants where I used the stuff.

I have been feeding my catfish food that has been dusted with food grade DE powder for a while now and they are still doing fine. The bag of catfish food had gotten infested with ants big time before I could get an air tight bin for it. This stuff seems to help against ants getting into feed stuff.

Thips ate my habanero chillies while they were on the bush...

The soap insecticides work on soft bodies insects. It works by breaking down their waxy cutical protection that keeps them from dehydrating. This protective coating is part of the reason that insects dominate the world and lets them survive in all sorts of environments. Roly Polies (crustacians), for example, don't have such a coating. Leave them out in a dry place and they just evaporate to death. I used a soap + veggie oil mixture (2 tbsp of each into a gallon of water) a few weeks ago on my dirt garden because of the start of my yearly whitefly invasion. Wiped them out. Though I think it's the oil, not the soap, that took care of the whiteflies. Supposidly the oil suffocates whiteflies... I've also read that the oil helps the soap stick.

gnash none I have made has ever been boiled, the recipe I posted works fine on my soil veggie patch, can't see the soap being a big problem with the amount being used, adding the chilli sounds delicious might try some myself, maybe without the soap, but coffee gnash, what are you doing? trying to speed them up

Had a similar problem with ants coming in the house, simply traced them back to the nest and poured boiling water down the hole. Haven't seen ants in/near the house for about a week now. (although they might be regaining their energy by sitting back and eating thousands of tiny poached eggs )