Aphids

[Zac]

Welp…here I am with another issue in my tank😅

I noticed my duckweed was looking really bad a few days ago and it wasn’t making sense to me. It seems out of nowhere it started dying m. I do have some frog it too which is doing okay. Today I’m looking in my tank and notice these little buggers hanging out on my duckweed.

 

I know aphids aren’t aquatic..so could I just remove the plants and some tank water and push the plants under water for an hour or so with plastic or something? I know floating plants don’t like to get wet but since it’s only for a little bit I figured it would be okay. They seem to move too fast for my fish to eat them. I think they came from the frogbit I ordered a couple weeks ago. Any suggestions?

Edited August 7, 2023 by Zac

[Guppysnail]

Hi Zac. Drowning the adults will work but I’m not certain if the eggs can survive. Reverse Respiration the eggs will not survive nor will the adults. Scoop out all the floating plants( I know duckweed is impossible to get all but try). 
Place the floaters in a mesh media bag and weight them down in seltzer for at least 4 hours.  Then return them to your tank  no need to rinse it leaves no residue  

I did test duckweed and dwarf water lettuce but not frogbit so that’s why I say 4 hours.  Not the full 12  at 4 hours water lettuce and duckweed did fine however the roots fell off the water lettuce  it recovered but those plants are not designed to be submerged.  We also did not specifically test aphid eggs but those also were not designed to be submerged so RR should do the trick  

 

[Zac]

On 8/7/2023 at 4:22 PM, Guppysnail said:

Hi Zac. Drowning the adults will work but I’m not certain if the eggs can survive. Reverse Respiration the eggs will not survive nor will the adults. Scoop out all the floating plants( I know duckweed is impossible to get all but try). 
Place the floaters in a mesh media bag and weight them down in seltzer for at least 4 hours.  Then return them to your tank  no need to rinse it leaves no residue  

I did test duckweed and dwarf water lettuce but not frogbit so that’s why I say 4 hours.  Not the full 12  at 4 hours water lettuce and duckweed did fine however the roots fell off the water lettuce  it recovered but those plants are not designed to be submerged.  We also did not specifically test aphid eggs but those also were not designed to be submerged so RR should do the trick  

 

Thank you so much. Will the 4 hours be enough to kill the aphids since it’s much less than 12 hrs?

Edited August 7, 2023 by Zac

[Guppysnail]

On 8/7/2023 at 4:27 PM, Zac said:

Thank you so much. Will the 4 hours be enough to kill the aphids since it’s much less than 12 hrs?

The adult aphids will asphyxiate in minutes. The eggs should be asphyxiated as well. RR kills pest snail eggs designed to live underwater so it should kill terrestrial quite easily. 
 

@dasaltemelosguy?

[dasaltemelosguy]

Hi @Zac, we never specifically tested RR on aphids, but we did test it on several insects and insect larvae. The first thing we noticed was almost instant paralysis. Insects become immediately immobilized and perish in seconds afterwards, including ants. Eggs took longer but became inviable after 30 minutes.

These are snail eggs. The egg on the right was treated with RR for 30 minutes:

Leeches proved the most resilient and as above, they were instantly paralyzed but confirmed expiration took overnight. But leeches were the exception as all other insects we tested RR on expired almost immediately.

My guess is that as @Guppysnail said, the adults will asphyxiate in minutes or less and their eggs will either be killed or become inviable in a about 30 minutes. It seems that the extreme high pressure in seltzer helps it penetrate the eggs and some unusually resilient snails that normally can escape pesticides and poisons.

I’m no expert and someone else here may know. These critters below all expired in 2-3 seconds upon immersion in seltzer. I believe one is an aphid being consumed by a hydra but again, I’m no expert: 

 

[Zac]

On 8/7/2023 at 5:49 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Hi @Zac, we never specifically tested RR on aphids, but we did test it on several insects and insect larvae. The first thing we noticed was almost instant paralysis. Insects become immediately immobilized and perish in seconds afterwards, including ants. Eggs took longer but became inviable after 30 minutes.

These are snail eggs. The egg on the right was treated with RR for 30 minutes:

Leeches proved the most resilient and as above, they were instantly paralyzed but confirmed expiration took overnight. But leeches were the exception as all other insects we tested RR on expired almost immediately.

My guess is that as @Guppysnail said, the adults will asphyxiate in minutes or less and their eggs will either be killed or become inviable in a about 30 minutes. It seems that the extreme high pressure in seltzer helps it penetrate the eggs and some unusually resilient snails that normally can escape pesticides and poisons.

I’m no expert and someone else here may know. These critters below all expired in 2-3 seconds upon immersion in seltzer. I believe one is an aphid being consumed by a hydra but again, I’m no expert: 

 

Thank you so much. This is a very interesting study. I’ll have to give this a shot