Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Anyone had any cockroaches in their plants?

Everytime I harvest some celery, I am finding one or two. Just little ones, but anyone have anyideas on fish safe baits.

I could put some regular traps out, but they would get wet from the rain and possibly leach into the water etc.

chickens would be fish safe, but I doubt they would be veggie safe

But! I was just reading Green Harvest's catalogue and they have sticky roach traps, 10 traps for $10

how about providing an enticing dark housing for them and then use them to feed the fish................some one just posted some info on them, was it rass?

Good idea J,
I had bought some of the sticky yellow traps for other insects, which proved to be quite successful at catching stuff.

Here is picture of Yellow stuff

how does it go with water or dew?

apart from being gross looking whats wrong with cockroaches ?? do they cause problems ?

i know they are offten signs of general poor higene (sp ?) but normaly that is fault of the human in charge of the area the roach is just looking for food after all

I don't really like cockroaches crawling/living in my food. The celery has been in the beds for quite some time and probably has gone a little feral, but I wouldn't say it was unhigenic. {well one of the plants I don't harvest from anymore - it also gets the least sunlight and was slowest to grow}
Have covered that one in DE to get rid of the Aphids aswell.

Steve

It has been raining here heaps but the trap is still sticky as buggery. It hasn't caught any water or dew though. The waxy substance must repel it...

NO problem!

Sticky Roach traps won't give you anything to feed the fish. I am from one of the hugh roach capitals of the world, and we feed them to our anxious fish daily who leave the water in attempt to get to them before the next guy.

Here's how you do it:

-get a jar (glass is better than plastic if you have it available) whose opening is smaller than the body of the jar,
-get vasaline on you finger and wipe it around the inner lip of the jar, about 2 inches down,
-drop the roaches favorite food down to the bottom of the jar (we actually use dog and fish food pellets),
-hide the jar in the area where they tend to congrigate and where they will feel hidden,

What happens is they are attracted to the easy food, and once they are in the jar, if the lid is smaller than the body, they don't feel comfortable flying out until they are clear of the lid, with the vasaline on the sides, they can't climb back out. Each morning we have an early morning treat for the fish and the roaches are totally unsuspecting since they are still happily eating. Just dump the jar over the water, the fish eat the roaches dog food and of course the fish food.

Everybodys happy!

Mathew-Sounds good! what is the catch made up off?
Is it only roaches that fall into the trap?
C1

I have placed a trap with peanut butter. Will see tonight what it looks like.

Ants are the only other catch I have had, they end up eating the roaches if you don't find a way to avoid the ants you won't have fish food.

maybe you could place the jar on a saucer of very shallow water? i know ants wont be able to cross it, but i am guessing the cocroaches will still be able to enter fine.....

Clean them before the fish eat them?