Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Perhaps cutworms or other caterpillars, BT or dippel dust might help.

or snails or slugs.................

Can you flood the bed to try and flush them out from where they may be hiding?

sounds like snails/slugs - go out at night with a torch and have a look.

Beer trap is the best thing I've found for them.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Ive been Dipelling them with no effect. Also Im not seeing any 'trails' so wasnt thinking slugs or snails but will take the torch out tonight... but have noticed heaps of really small bugs running around through the gravel in that bed... smaller than aphids and very active... Ive no idea what they are but was wondering if they might be the culprit?

... just flooded all the beds in that bank... the problem bed was swarming with little black spiders, and these small bugs... hundreds of them... small ones are cream coloured, large are dark. They are long and thin with feelers out front... and jump around if disturbed. There wasnt anything else coming out of the gravel...

Suggest you do that again and get some photos of the little buggers.

I'll be of no damn use whatsoever in identifying them , but other useful people such as Faye or Jaymie may be able to ID 'em for you.

thanks chillidude... I did take my camera out there but havent looked at the pics yet to see how I went... battery went flat just as I was about to look... Grrrr.

Wow, just finished getting through this thread! What a first system

Cheers Tricky

Was just thinking you must be fairly new to the forum, then noticed you just joined on my sons birthday... been pretty flat out since then... so Welcome! Hope your having fun 'perusing' the forum... by far the best one I reckon

Yup, think we are due for an update, water temps are hitting 21 deg, so seems like its time to add some fish pretty soon!

Had a huge spike a couple of weeks ago to the point of worrying that any residual bacteria in the system might be damaged but its all good and everything is starting to take off... If your wondering why, lets just say a bucket of fish food slurry with a cup or two of ammonium sulphate (I think thats what he used) might just be the culprit

Amm only went to 2ppm, but the Ni maxed out and the Na was getting pretty close to 160... doesnt help that our card is a bit faded... once it gets near the top end it could be anything.
Ph is sitting around 7.4 tho which is a bit better than 8.4ish which is where it was for so long. Not sure if it could be also due to the addition of nearly 2 metres of 10mm gravel into the system which may have a lower pH maybe?

BTW, bushy and chilli... went out a couple of nights later and pulled about a dozen slugs off the GBs so thanks for that... going to go out again tonight if we have time as we are starting to get a bit of damage again.

Having an aphid problem but finding heaps of ladybirds too so might let them take care of the problem for us for now.

Rest of the solarweave was removed off the roof of the GH a while back so bees and insects are all doing their thing whether beneficial or not... getting a good polination rate on whatever needs it tho which is good.

Have heard of folks buying a small swarm of drone bees to do the pollinating inside the greenhouse. They say it's cheaper with just the drones because you aren't buying a queen to go with. Is that something you could do where you are located?
At the end of their life cycle and they all die off so there is no having to let them hang around all the time. And you get a bit of honey at the end.

Interesting idea MrBill... except Im allergic to bees so the idea of locking a heap of them in with me is a slightly scary thought!

I had started looking into stingless bees a while back but unfortunately I think they are suited to a more tropical climate... Apparently SARDI was doing a bit of research on native bees for that purpose only about an hour and a half from here so one day was planning on trying to contact them to find out the results... would be an interesting project to read as it was specifically based around testing different species for use in commercial greenhouses for pollination.

Ive always been fascinated with beekeeping but ah well...

One reason I like the idea of a temp controlled greenhouse tho... stingless bees would be awesome to have if we could keep them alive!

Yep... go the native bees.... they're stingless... and you can buy native bee hives on the net...

Dont mind me... just pulling a quote by Rupe from another thread that I really want to have as a handy reference for us... on ours ... god knows if we have the same probs this year as we had last - we will need them. Cheers Rupe and hope you dont mind

Spread the gospel sister...