purklize
Active Member
Apr 24, 2012
I'm really surprised that no one else has thought of this... there's an easy solution to root aphids in DWC.
I fought these bastards in soil for months and couldn't ever get rid of them entirely. I tried MANY methods of control, including strategic use of tanglefoot, diatomaceous earth, etc. I wasn't willing to resort to chemical pesticides because of toxicity issues, and the fact they linger in the plant for years. The reason they survive organic pesticides is because there's little air pockets in the soil where a few inevitably survive (even if you dunk for an hour!). There's no way around this.
So, finally I thought of a way to get rid of them... I switched to DWC. After a week or two they started attacking the roots as usual, hundreds if not thousands of them on one plant alone. Horrible.
I filled a 5 gallon bucket with soapy water and a teaspoon of rosemary oil, mixed it up with a whisk (it's the best way, otherwise you splash everywhere). Then I took the plant, removed the air line and air stone, and dropped it in the soapy/rosemary water. It is VERY important that this soapy water is NOT aerated. The point is to suffocate the bugs. The soapy water needs to be above the hydroton, the hydroton should be floating.
I let the plant sit there like this for 30 minutes - one lone root aphid tried to climb on a floating hydroton pellet which rolled over and dunked it back in the water, never to reappear... then I washed the roots off, hooked up the air stone again and dropped it in a clean bucket with freshly mixed nutes.
Now, the thing is, root aphids frequently sprout wings and fly high up into the plant. Wingless ones also climb up the stem into the plant. So what you want to do to prevent this is to smear tanglefoot around the stem of the plant. Nothing can walk through that, they all get stuck and die, it is the stickiest substance I have ever encountered by far. If you get tanglefoot on you and need to remove it, the only way is to rub it with mineral oil, and then wash off with hot soapy water. No amount of soapy water alone will ever remove it, trust me lol. If you're ever pissed at someone smear some on their doorknob.
The tanglefoot will keep the crawlers from climbing back down the stem, but you still have flyers which can fly and land on the hydroton and lay live babies asexually (it only takes one to infest your plant!). To prevent this, get two plastic grocery bags and cut flat circles of plastic the size of your bucket's lid. In each circle, cut a long slit in the center and slide this over the plant. Put them on the plant so that the slits are 90 degrees rotated from each other, this way bugs can't climb through the slit. Then tape this down on the lid. Now the bastards can't back in! They seem to only survive a day or two outside of the root zone.
Eradicating them was very quick, cheap, and easy using this method. I know the pain of fighting these, it's absolutely awful, and I hope this puts an end to the suffering for at least all us DWC growers.
