Pond bugs...indoors !

[TANGOMAN]

Well, I've had the pond plants and Koi down in the basement for over a week now. The first couple of days the aphids were in full bloom. Fortunately they cycled and died off before they found the fruit bowl in the kitchen. That'd go over well eh...? . I have changed my ways it seems. The odd spider in the house isn't such a bad thing anymore.
I now see I have a problem with a new insect. A big problem. . They're tiny. They look like a beetle. Sorta...? They don't fly. At least not yet. (I'm prayin' it stays that way!) These things are devouring my water lillies though. I noticed "chomp" marks on the leaves when they were outside. I figured the fish were just stupid...well, they are stupid but it's not them chompin' on the leaves...

Is there an insecticide that is safe for the fish ? I'm thinkin' not but I haven't yet looked. Should I fire up the U.V. sterilizer and hope to get 'em if they're floatin' around...?
HELP ! If these things get airbourne, I'll be gettin' airbourne too...

[Beverly]

Sounds like a HUGE problem to me When I kept goldfish indoors, I was a subscriber to a goldfish mailing list. It can be found here:

http://puregold.aquaria.net/pg/home.html

If they can't help you, maybe they can direct you to someplace that can. Good luck

[DOO-E]

THem Swimmer beetles are a pain if they get big enough they will bite your fingers i would just manualy remove them bit by bit if you have the time and your pond isnt that big.

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I encounter this problem if I take plants indoors too, many many unwelcome hitch-hikers. Those black aphids are pretty icky.

Hate to say it but I think you need to separate the fish from the plants. Then at least you have some options for treating the plants if necessary.

The safest solution would involve ordering a predator insect, like ladybugs, but the problem is this is not the most practical of solutions for inside a home (if you had a greenhouse, however, ...).

As far as insecticides though. You may find that it's getting rather hard to find anything stronger than "soap." A lot of insecticides and pesticides have just been plum-taken off the market. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's good that dangerous products are not easy to get ahold of, and probably this is the best for the environment and blah blah blah. But in the meantime. What the halle are we supposed to do about these icky creatures invading our home? When I moaned to the guy at Green Gate about how hard it was gonna be to wash the scale insects of my pygmy date plan (which has thorns) he said "well if the plant is worth it to you, you will wash it." I said, "but they'll come back." He said: "if the plant is worth it to you, you will wash it again." I washed it once. They came back. I ended up throwing the plant out. The plant looked like crap, no wonder, with all these icky sticky barnacles sucking the life out of it. Scale on some plants is, I guess, basically the end of them. This is ridiculous. I figure, if I ever get another, I want a guarantee in writing from the grower that it doesn't have scale. If I'm not allowed to treat the plant properly, then I don't think it's an unreasonable condition to ask for one that's not pre-infested. Yeah, right, like that'll ever happen.

Not that any of this helps you. Sorry for the rant. It's just something that "bugs" me.

Basically my pond plants get isolated because of the bugs phenomenon. Yeah, they'll die back but with luck they'll come back in the spring (at least the irises have so far always come back). But yeah, I think we need a better solution for overwintering pond stock. ... If you figure it out, can you let me know too?

[DOO-E]

I called my LFS they have preying mantis maybe they would eat the bugs if not they would most likly live around the pond edge for you and eat spiders and other larger bugs.

[outacontrol]

Originally Posted by jackjhonsmith

Freshwater ponds also benefit from aquatic plants the water they control their own environmental conditions. Water lily is not only beautiful, but also provides a cool place for fish to hide in especially hot days. Many plants also attract insects and other small errors that they can provide you with a good friend of secondary tropical fish food resources.

Do you see the date of these threads you are commenting on?
7 years old!

[MMAX]

Originally Posted by outacontrol

Do you see the date of these threads you are commenting on?
7 years old!

Yeah looks like he restarted all the old pond threads in here.