Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not sure what kind of bugs these are or what to do to kill them please help.
History: I have had ants in the grow bed that carried lots of annoying bugs in.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Py2S ... p=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Py2S ... p=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Py2S ... p=drivesdk

Looks like aphids or thrips(I just had a bout of those). Based on your ant problem, I would really suspect aphids since they farm aphids like cows. You will need to get rid of the ants first, then go after the aphids. I have had success with Safer Insecticidal Soap(potassium salts) and horticultural oil. There are some more expensive controls but this seems to work good once you get control of the ants (borax for the win!).

Yup, that third picture is definitely aphids. You can reduce their numbers by using a thin hard jet of water (strong spray bottle, or putting your finger over the end of a hose) to wash them off the leaves, which will give your poor plants a break while you're dealing with the rest of the problem.

Like ebeuerle said, go after the ants - flood your growbeds to the top to drive them out if they're still in there, use borax or other baits to get rid of the nests, put petroleum jelly or something similar on your growbed supports to stop them climbing back up. Once they're gone, you can use neem oil or soap solution to kill the aphids (dilute according to directions and spray onto the leaves, make sure you get the undersides, cover your media with paper to keep it out of your water) and maybe buy / encourage natural predators like ladybugs and parasitic wasps to control them long-term.

I figured it was something like that based in the ants I'm pretty sure I got them all gone but I'll flood it one more time to make sure. Also what's the best way to kill the aphids water jet or soapy water I've never had them before.

Also I have a few small drips in the system and was going to silicone it up with some 100% silicone since it hasnt stopped dripping from the start of the system. What would you use for slip pvc pipes?

Water jet just knocks them all off the plants (and hopefully washes them away), it's useful if you've got lots of them. For a soap spray, get a cheap spray bottle and some pure liquid soap (Dr Bronner's unscented is good). Don't use detergent, it's not the same thing. You just need one tablespoon of liquid soap in a quart of water, mix it up well, and spray on your plants until the leaves start to drip. Turn over leaves and make sure you get everywhere. You can add about half a tablespoon of cooking oil (or neem oil if you can find it) to make it stick a bit better.

That's the version for aphids, it suffocates the little buggers. You can add stuff to help in different situations, like if you also have powdery mildew you can add a little vinegar, if you have caterpillars etc chewing your plants you can add ground-up peppers and garlic.

Oops, forgot the second question. Be careful with silicone on joints in a running system, even fish-safe silicone gives off fumes etc while it's setting. If you can block off the pipes that are dripping while the silicone is curing, that's good, but if you can't separate them from the system that long then maybe shut off the pump for a few minutes, undo the offending joints, and wrap them with plumbers' thread tape before fitting them back together. (Since you said slip pvc I'm guessing they aren't glued?)

Nope I have not glued any of my pipes however I tried to wait out the leaky parts but it's been a while and it hasn't stopped and with it being 100 outside I'm trying to limit water loss as much as I can. So just undo the pipes and add some plumber tape to them even though it's slip pipes? I'm going to try that soap tomorrow I found it at target seems pretty good.

Yeah, I used plumbers tape on a couple of drippy joints and it worked fine - it's a little trickier to put together than with a threaded joint but it works. The way I did it was to wrap the tape so it overlapped the edge of the pipe, and then I pushed the other piece on while turning it a little in the same direction I'd wrapped the tape. If you don't have the tape overlapping the edge of the pipe it just pushes along the surface when you try to fit the joint together.