Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This morning I had to spray my dirt garden for mites. My brussel sprouts and cilantro were crawling with them.

I use a mixture of antibacterial soap and capsium. It takes multiple treatments but it usually works.

Not sure if this is safe for aquaponics.

My usual pests are mites, whiteflies, and cabbage loopers.

What AP safe treatments do you guys use?

I have heard of (and will try) taking molasses making a spray to put on the plants.
The pests don't like the sugar and it don't harm the plants in any way.

I had plenty of sneaky caterpillars crawling over my basil, I mixed up a solution of dipel, sprayed it over it, and I spotted almost 10 of them thrashing angrily.

Gotten rid of them completely. And it's harmless to everything else. I couldn't recommend it enough.

keep soap away from your ap system....

I got a great mite/ aphids spray... works will on fungus as well.. what u need is
1cup of olive oil.
1 head of pealed garlic.
1 spray bottle.
some water.

finely dice the gralic. try not to blend I will be hard to filter later and could clog spray bottle.
after dicing place garlic into the cup of all. then place this mixture into the cooling section of the fridge.. not freezing... leave for about a week in there. after a week its ready to be used. if I looks like it has solidify just let it sit in room temperature for a while it will liquefy back.
measure 2 tablespoon per gallon of water also add a drop I repeat 1 drop of dish washing liquid to the water as well.

spray onto affect areas in the evening time. this will minimize leaf burns. the next day u should see results if rain doesn’t fall.. let me know if it works.

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sry I meant to say place garlic into cup of OIL

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My wonderful leafy greens and radish have attracted the attention of aphids and caterpillars. Tried the crush method and it did nothing for my skins complexion (feeling a caterpillar pop was interesting. posting.php?mode=reply&f=11&t=20698# )
Went to Bunnings and came across stuff called eco-neem. Having seen somewhere else in this forum that neem oil was ok, I grabbed it. I also grabbed the dipel packet and then asked the friendly garden lady what the good oil was on the two products. She grabbed a nearby rep from a different company and they both thought both products would be ok, but the eco-neem would do the job of the dipel, so didn't need to get both. When I got home with the eco-neem, I read the inside label and it said eco-neem was only for use on ornamental plants. posting.php?mode=reply&f=11&t=20698#.
Sent an email off to the makers of the product and they sent me a reply, the body of the response being below:

"In Australia there is a government regulatory body (the APVMA) which controls how insecticides and be used and what must appear on the label. Currently they have only approved eco-neem for use on ornamental plants and require us to put the warning on the label which you've read. We do not agree with their decision but as they are the regulatory body we must abide by their rulings.

Interestingly if we were in New Zealand we wouldn't be having this discussion. The NZ regulatory body deems eco-neem to be perfectly safe for use on edible plants. Most importantly they also say that there is no withholding period needed. It is the same pretty much everywhere else in the world eg Europe, UK, America, India, Japan etc...

I would also like to point out that eco-neem can be toxic to fish when introduced directly into their water. We generally recommend avoiding using it around fish as a precaution. Some people however have told us they have no problems when spraying foliage around ponds and being mindful of not letting drift settle on the water.

An alternative product would be to use eco-oil which will control sap suckers like the aphids and is safe for the fish (just don't spray so much you cause a layer of oil to sit on the water surface and cut off oxygen). Eco-oil won't control caterpillars though."

I'm thinking I'll be going back and getting some of that dipel. Hoping this is of help to others.