Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Look at what I caught happening in my GH the other day:

A little ladybug luvin

Humanfly - I did a little digging and found some scraps of black screen material used in windows screens and doors to keep bugs out. They sell a 4' X 25' roll of the stuff at the HomeDepot for under $20. http://www.homedepot.com/Doors-Windows- ... ogId=10053

I'll mull it over a bit. It's made out of fiberglass and it's aluminum color - my only concern is if it will block out enough light at this point. The scraps of black screen that I have seem to be doing a good job - aluminum color might be a whole different story.

At this point I'm wondering if it would be worth it to shell out the dough for some shade cloth that will not react to polycarbonate panels. Thanks for the ideas!

So, are you ready for the ladybug larvae?


Aphids are a bugger. I like the ant stakes as well. I believe the ant dust would be toxic unless he is talking about diatomaceous earth, something you can buy at most garden stores.

If you see any hover flies about (they look like flies or bees, but often hover in place) cross your fingers that they will invade your greenhouse. The maggots are wonderful aphid predators.


Best heat control I've found is having door open, fan outside & blowing in at ground level. Works great for cooling the house down after a hot day, too.

? Does shade cloth react with poly carb? You can get 6' wide by I think 15 ' long shade cloth packages at Lowes for about $25 around here I think. For that little greenhouse I don't think you need too much unless you are going to wrap the whole thing up.

Of course if there is an easy way to remove some of the side panels without hurting the structural integrity of the greenhouse. I would say remove as much of the sides as you can for the summer and put them back in the fall.

I did a little digging and found that greenhouse poly panels should be ok to use with shade cloth because the manufacturers expect that it will be used for the application. It was a random quote from a random article I found on the web but I'm going to chance it.

TC - I stopped by the local home depot and bought a 6' X 20' shade cloth from Home Depot for $30 and cut it in half.. Your right, my little greenhouse didn't need that much. I got the South wall fully covered, part of the West wall (the East is already shaded by my house), and about 90% of the roof covered. Seems I should have opted for the wider cloth, but it seems to be doing a sufficient job of cooling for now.

Once the temperature starts rising even more in California, I'll see about removing panels as they don't seem to be load baring.

Hydro - I'm afraid that I never saw any ladybug larvae. I believe the earwigs got to them unless the eggs haven't been laid yet, which is quite possible. One good thing about the earwigs is that they are supposed to be insectivores/omnivores so although they may nibble on my plants they also eat aphids. Right now the damage from the earwigs is negligible so I'm going to keep them around and let them have a go on the aphids.

I've got the fan at roof level at the moment because that's where the vent is. I positioned it to draw outside air in. I suppose I can open the door and position the fan ground level on hotter days. I'm also going to play with taking a few panels off as TC suggested.

Thanks for the input everyone

I've no idea where I read that about some types of shade cloth reacting with polycarb; I can't find it now. It sounds like you have it sorted out.

This site notes that vinyl can cause problems:
http://www.cloudtops.com/polycarbonate/ ... erties.php

It also notes other chemicals that would attack polycarb.

Here's a picture of my GH with the shade cloth up. This is facing south.

Some new growth.

The second shot includes 2 or 3 week old transplants.

The first shot is of swiss chard after I harvested a couple bigger leaves this morning. I hear that they get bitter in warm weather so I'm trying to harvest all the leaves while they're young.

In anticipation of the summer heat, I decided to play around with the idea of different ways to cool.

I went on youtube and saw some interesting DIY AC designs. I didn't want to spend any money so I just used stuff I already had lying around. Here's what I came up with.

Basically, it's a bucket insulated with some of that bubble foil wrap that they ship meat in. The bucket is filled with ice water (I'll be using reusable frozen two liter bottles in the future).

On the top of the lid I drilled an intake and placed a small fan to suck air in. I drilled another hole for the outlet. I glued an elbow joint to help direct air flow.

The system works, albiet not too well. Cold air does come out but I think I need a stronger fan.

So I Do Not recommend my cooler/bucket design. I found that it doesn't provide adequate cooling for the effort and electricity (to run the fan and make ice).

I'll chalk this failure up to a lesson learned.

Hi Nax,

I've had some success with large frozen plastic pop bottles. I just stand several of them up in a tray, in front of a fan. It works well enough to cool a bedroom enough to get a comfortable sleep on a hot night; I didn't check the energy consumption but I expect that the larger the mass of ice, with a smaller surface area, the longer it would cool. A bunch of ice cubes with a high surface area would probably melt very quickly. Maybe try freezing the whole bucket?

I'm even wondering if you could just ditch the fan

Hey Nax,

Why not just dump ice into the ft? Bring the whole system down a few degrees, which will then act as a heat sink. Should be very efficient; certainly won't hurt the goldfish or koi, those guys don't mind a bit of chill as long as it's not too much of a sudden temp change.

As for the aphids, I saw a video on another AP site of someone who actually uprooted her infested plants, put the whole plant in the ft and swished it around until all the bugs were in the water for the fish to feast on, then replanted in the growing medium. That might work if your plants are small enough to handle easily.

Humanfly - I'll give your pop bottle idea a shot. I don't really want to ditch the fan because I want cool air flowing rather than being stagnant and settling to the ground.



Half of my FT dug into the ground. Water temperatures are pretty stable - I'm more worried about overheating plants.

Another thing I'm doing is keeping the door open like TC and Hydro suggested - Once I have some time I'm going to build a screen door so I don't attract too many pests.



Sounds like a keen idea, but I'd hate to put my plant and their root system through all that shock. My system is still pretty new so it takes a while for plants to recover. I repositioned one of my basil plants and it was severely stunted when compared to the ones that I left put.