Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

By pests you mean the boys in blue? the ones that come and look in you backyard coz youve got a houthouse and they think your growing dope in it?

Btw.........Peter Cundell of Garden Oz fame has a cool recipe for homemade white oil, would be worth checkin out his website.

Oh and a BIG HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAH to the boys in blue aka PESTS aka people with nuthin better to do than to annoy everyone and not be there when you need them heheehe

To attract bugs, all you need is an led a mirror and a container to trap them in. A solar light would work brilliantly. Extend the wires to the led. preferably ultra white. Point the led up and have the mirror at a 45 degree angle facing down into the container. The bugs fly along, see the light *smack* hit the mirror and fall into the container.

I will post pics of my grow bed tonight.... right now you are all asleep so i will try and explain it and as you are dreaming maybe you will get the picture. hehe

My grow beds are long and narrow (.6 meter wide x 3 meters long) pictured here http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... c&start=15 . I filled the beds full with gravel bottom, sand cover. Approximately 25 cm from the end of the grow bed drain I made an earth (sand/gravel) dam forcing water flow through the dam slower than water coming into gb. Continuous low flow pump keeps water flowing down the center of the grow bed where I've dug out a natural river bed (12 cm wide, 6 cm deep). Plants are planted along the "shores" where the roots scavenge into the main flow channel through the sand. Fry live in the middle. Every hour the big pump cycles to get the solids out of the main stock tank and into the grow beds vie the gravity fed drain pipe in the center of the fish tank.

I will send photos tonight as the wife and son will be out and I wll get some time to do this.


After reading the "bug trap" posts, I am liking that idea too. My problem is if my continuous flow pump fails (although I have backup) I will still lose flow and the fry will die. But....Tilapia breed so much that I always have spare fry.

personally i have found neem oil effective for controlling mites. i much prefer this method to chem pesticides as its 100% organic and non toxic. sure it may not kill of the mites, but it will make your crop less attractive for processing. also you wont kill off the benifitial organisms which naturally control pests..

Hi Simmo,
Us organic gardeners have two products that are useful to control soft-bodied caterpillars, mites or aphids, and that I think would work in Aquaponics.

The first is diatomaceous earth. It looks like chalk dust, and actually, that's exactly what it is. You dust it on to plants very lightly, and when soft-bodied bugs eat it or get it on them, they get cut up by the microscopically fine sharp edges. It is lethal to them, but to you and me it is like a fine dust. Large amounts of it may raise your pH, but otherwise, I expect that it would not hurt fish. Mind you, I have not actually used this with fish yet, but it might be worth a try.

The other product that organic gardeners use in such a situation is called 'BT', short for Bacillus thuringiensis. It is a bacteria that causes severe stomache cramps (and death) in many caterpillars, but is harmless to humans. (We use it here for cabbage loopers and potatoe beetle larva.) It is sold as a powder to be dusted on crops, or as a ring that can be floated in water to keep mosquito populations down. I believe it would be safe for fish, but I have not tried it.

There are other organic pest controls that I would not use with fish. Pyrethins and Neem come to mind as being regarded as organic, but also as being something I wouldn NOT try with fish in the loop.

Does anyone else have suggestions?

--Janet.

Thanks Janet,
BT is the one that VB told me about, I am going to try and get some of that. The Diatomaceous earth sounds like it's worth a try !
It is really interesting, when I had only one grow bed and my system was really well balanced, the plants were really healthy....no bugs.....now that I have added more grow beds and killed a heap of fish, the plants are looking very sad indeed, leaves yellowing etc and the arrival of bugs, heaps of them. Maybe just a coincidence , perhaps.
I am going out to get some Basil seedlings today and some marigold seedlings (is that how you spell marigold?)

I've hear that D. E. also works by dessicating the soft bodied insects.

All good suff, keep it comming!

Murray, It is no coincidence that malnourished plants are more susceptible to invasion by pests or disease. Just like people, if you get run down, you get the flu!

Bio Farmer, I did not catch that you had successfully used Neem. I would have been afraid to try, but hey, if it's working for you, that's great.

Steve, 'Dessicate' is a polite term for ''dry out' as in: 'dry out because they have multiple wounds and are leaking bodily fluid.' I'm not always polite.

--Janet.

great suggestions Janet. Some good stuff, I think I will try it. I want to get off the continuous flow train for awhile, I worry at work that the bed will go dry if power goes down (battery would only last couple hours max). Although I like not having to put anything on my plants...hmmmm

Is there any problems with putting oils (eg white oil) into your system? I know you'd only be using small amounts but could it potentially coat your gravel and suffocate your bacteria?

Muzz - can you try the BT and let me know if your fish die . You can be the test bunny.

Accroding to a SA DPI document I have seen, BT should not be harmful to the fish.

I'll dig this out again to confirm - then I'll give it a go myself. The caterpillers are dessimating my toms and all the leafy crops.

very graphical Is there anything we should know about you before we give your our home addresses?

Makes sense. LOL

personally i have used neem for fruit crops during the veg cycle to control mites. mites are all over this area so control is my only real option. i have never used on fruiting plants or leaf crops. i would be wary of using neem on leaf crops close to harvest time because it doesn't smell like it would taste so nice.

hi there, i have done some trials with BT in thailand with farmers on ditch dyke systems and they never had a problem with fish kills. works well but the Thai's didnt like it as the knock down time was much longer than with synthetics.
As for neem, yup i can confirm it doesn't taste great.... but it should also be noted that it is toxic.... just because its naturally derived doesn't mean it can't be toxic, and neem most definately is, otherwsie it wouldn't kill things...
Fish and integrated pest management is the only way to go, but often requires a complementary set of solutions rather that one simple quick fix, but i guess you guys (and girls) know all about that.

waht about netting or some other form of pest barrier? combined with fish fry in the system and a biopesticide if nesacary after that,.
do you guys have elderflower bushs/ trees in the US/Aus. as i have played round with ettracts of their leaves and that stuff is very toxic (not sure about toxicity to fish though.

Insecticides called pyrethrums are made from the flower plant Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium. It was first discovered because of its use by African tribal peoples to control insect pests. have a go making this, everyone must have chrysanthemums

cheers for now
charlie

Not necessarily, honestly I wish i could do more research on this with my system, but as it is set up it has limited capacity. Others on this forum should take a big leap into this as I intend to do on my next system.....