Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A search on aphid control in AP reveals very little.

Has anyone something that is effective?

Soz rick you know me, I am going to come up with the least radical answer.
Lady bugs.
But they are prolly there already so be careful you don't kill off your friends

No lady birds to be seen ATM.

They will be in pupae(sp?)

Do you have the little ant aphid herders? I'm also interested as Dipel dust is for caterpillars but my aphid population did decrease when it was used. For Some reason the mean stinging red wasps started patroling all over the ap system and I haven't any more caterpillars so I haven't used the dipel in a while.

Since aphids are soft bodied insects, almost anything you might spray or sprinkle that hits them will negatively affect them. Simply spraying water can knock the aphids off of plants. This can work if all you have is aphids but if the ants are farming the aphids, the ants will bring the aphids back. So far, I've largely been ignoring the aphids on my pepper plants, the ants are farming them and I've not found an effective (and safe for AP) method of getting rid of the ants. My peppers are still producing well even with the aphids and ants so I just have to be careful not to get bitten by the ants while working around the plants.

I don't believe the queen ant resides in the ap system so I wonder if ant bait may work, I know it will work with the red ants but the little black sweet/piss ants not sure the bait is sweet enough for them. I may try a bait trap and spray with sugar water to attract them.

There is an ant bait that seems to work well on those sweet ants. I never thought of trying to use it around the AP system though. It did work well when the sweet ants infested my kitchen. I went outside and found where their trail was leading up to get into the house. Then I squirted the bottle across their trail. The stuff I used was a liquid Terro Ant Killer Contains Borax. If you can find a trail leading up to the grow bed from the ground, then squirt some of that stuff there where it can't get into the AP system and perhaps it would work. Hum, I wonder if it would work for mine.

Here is a link on the aphid life cycle. It seems once on a host plant the females don't have to breed they just give birth to more females.
http://www.backyardnature.net/aphid_lc.htm
So if you can irradicate the ants, then you can just control their numbers.

Ginger can be an effective control for ants. We've had success with putting a small trail of it in front of doors and other places where they try to come into the house. I've also heard, (though not tried) that earthworm casings can be a deterrent. I think there's something in them that can break down the chitin in ants.

I wouldn't trust that worm castings could work against ants in any way. I have worm bins and a very important thing with outdoor worm bins is to keep the ants out in the first place since they really seem to love the conditions in a worm bin. I have also found that if I harvest a bucket full of worm castings, I must be careful where/how I leave it for any length of time since the ants will infest it big time. There is little worse than sticking your hand into a nice bucket of worm castings to spread them around only to have you hand covered and bitten up big time by the ants!!!!!!

The only method I've found to keep ants out of something long term outdoors is to have it on legs that you can place in containers of water/mineral oil. Ants won't cross a moat. Then you just have to check regularly to make sure there are no paths (like debris, grass, vines etc) to the object that get past the moat and make sure the moat doesn't go dry or get filled with debris that will provide a bridge for the ants.

I'm not sure how to manage this in an AP system with all the plumbing and support everything needs though and all the plants that like to grow and provide paths between objects etc.

I'm trying these bait stands for the ants (aphid shepards):
I've got another critter sucking plant sap, its a leaf footed bug. An orange and black critter. Going to dust tomorrow. I can't find any caterpillars. But I did see a red wasp munch down half of one before flying off with the other half. I normally kill those things when ever I find them. Those suckers are so mean you only have to disturb them to get stung and they are pretty serious around the nest.

Hmm I wish I had your problems with predators.
I have recently discovered that aphids are eating my lettuce
there are no lady bugs, but I would love to have some.

I used to have ants farming little green bugs less than 1mm or 1/32". I had thought these were aphids, as the ants were farming them until they ere densely packed. yet these fellas didn't bother me much. Plants survived well, and the ants and Aphids seemed to do well.
However, Now I discover the following:

which I am told is an aphid. however it is not green, has long legs and is somewhat bigger... some 2.5mm or 1/10" in length.
I wish I could get rid of him, he's decimating my plants, such that they break or get damaged and rot the cores of the lettuce, and the plant dies.
Somebody help please? Wasps or ladybugs, either I will welcome with open arms should they get rid of this pest.

I know it sounds like a bit of work, but if you catch them early before there are too many numbers you can control by squishing them with your fingers. I had noticed a few on my pak choy and lettuce a couple of weeks back and checked and squished everyday. They seem to be all gone now. Had no ants though.....so that may have helped.

Thumb and index, does it every time