larvae floating in my bubblin buckets WTF!

I have been growing for 25 years and the only bugs I ever had to deal with was spider mites. I have never seen or heard of these things before. I have done a lot of searching about this and found that these are most likely fungus gnat larvae and to just use some Mosquito Dunks and the problem will go away. I have also seen a lot of threads that Mosquito Dunks don't work at all. They sure don't work at all for me. I get pissed and spray them with pyrethrin before I dump and wash my buckets every few days. I put my plant in a clean bucket with fresh nute mix and a 1/4 of a crushed mosquito dunk and in a couple days they are floating on top of the water again. I suppose the roots are already infested. I spray them too but not too much.

The weird thing about it is that I never ever see an adult gnat anywhere. Is there some other larvae that lives on top of the water and looks like fine sawdust? I have other plants in pro mix and I have dug through the root ball right after harvest while they are still wet and can't find any larvae or bugs in the pro mix. I will probably make it through this crop and will clean everything and buy a new bale of pro mix. I am just amazed that there isn't some miracle chemical I can use to kill the tiny bastards without hurting my plants. We can put a man on the moon but we don't have a decent chemical to kill these things? I am beyond blaming where they came from I just need to get rid of them. I hope you experts can help me figure this out. Thanks.

It looks like there is such a chemical that I can put in a rez.

http://www.igrowhydro.com/infosheets/InfoSheet-AzatrolPatrol.pdf

I hope it works. Peace.

Peroxide will kill `em, just be careful as it'll also bbq any bennies you have in there. (diluted peroxide based on the % being cut)

sounds like springtails if u ask me,iv had them b4,i grow in wilma systems and both systems got them at around the same time,i got abit worryed because they wer alive on top of the water and that many living things in a res cant be good,after doing abit of reserch online i descovered they were springtails,,nothing to worry about m8 as they are harmless,they feed off dead matter in and around the roots,when u take them away from a water source they will die,no matter what i done to get rid of them they always came back,at harvest time there was fkin millions of the little buggers in the water,cleaned systems out with bleech water mix after harvest and that was the last i seen them,,,3 grows ago

H202 will not kill living things,, like bugs,, but is good to use to help with bug damage, You most lilely have spring tails.. as far as I can tell they dont hurt the plant, they want the water... look up Spring tails.. I will bet thats them.. they dont have flyers

VX420 said:

H202 will not kill living things,

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[h=2]Abstract[/h]Human neutrophils stimulated with phorbol myristate acetate were able to destroy suspensions or monolayers of cultured human endothelial cells. Neutrophil-mediated cytotoxicity was related to phorbol myristate acetate concentration, time of incubation and neutrophil number. Cytolysis was prevented by the addition of catalase, while superoxide dismutase had no effect on cytotoxicity. The addition of the heme-enzyme inhibitors, azide or cyanide, markedly stimulated neutrophil-mediated damage while exogenous myeloperoxidase failed to stimulate cytolysis. Neutrophils isolated from patients with chronic granulomatous disease did not destroy the endothelial cell targets while myeloperoxidase-deficient neutrophils successfully mediated cytotoxicity. Endothelial cell damage mediated by the myeloperoxidase deficient cells was also inhibited by catalase but not superoxide dismutase. The addition of purified myeloperoxidase to the deficient cells did not stimulate cytotoxicity. Glucose-glucose oxidase, an enzyme system capable of generating hydrogen peroxide, could replace the neutrophil as the cytotoxic mediator. The addition of myeloperoxidase at low concentrations of glucose oxidase did not increase cytolysis, but at the higher concentrations of glucose oxidase it stimulated cytotoxicity. The destruction of endothelial cells by the glucose oxidase-myeloperoxidase system was inhibited by the addition of hypochlorous acid scavengers. In contrast, neutrophil-mediated cytolysis was not effectively inhibited by the hypochlorous acid scavengers. Based on these observations, we propose that human neutrophils can destroy cultured human endothelial cells by generating cytotoxic quantities of hydrogen peroxide.

Not that I expect you to understand VX but,


The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that lines the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels,[SUP][1][/SUP] forming an interface between circulating blood or lymph in the lumen and the rest of the vessel wall. The cells that form the endothelium are called endothelial cells. Endothelial cells in direct contact with blood are called vascular endothelial cells, whereas those in direct contact with lymph are known as lymphatic endothelial cells.
Vascular endothelial cells line the entire circulatory system, from the heart to the smallest capillaries. These cells have very distinct and unique functions that are paramount to vascular biology. These functions include fluid filtration, such as in the glomeruli of the kidney, blood vessel tone, hemostasis, neutrophil recruitment, and hormone trafficking. Endothelium of the interior surfaces of the heart chambers are called endocardium.


I THINK H2O2 Kills living things. -S0uP

Thanks a lot guys!.. In my reading I came across a mention of springtails and it jumped right out at me. They do seem to be lively little buggers, like they are swinging a tail around. And the plants seem to be growing fine. I was paranoid that they would be eating my roots but like I said, the plants still look fine. That may explain why I never see any adult gnats around. I will now do some more reading on springtails and experiment with some H2O2.

I have gotten lax this winter about letting foreign material anywhere inside my house. I bought some supplies from a greenhouse, some from a grow store, a friend gave me a plant that I put into quarantine for mites but didn't inspect the dirt, and the gf has been sneaking in house plants. There is four good ways to ruin a crop and I should know better at my age. Thanks again guys.

70's natureboy said:

Thanks a lot guys!.. In my reading I came across a mention of springtails and it jumped right out at me. They do seem to be lively little buggers, like they are swinging a tail around. And the plants seem to be growing fine. I was paranoid that they would be eating my roots but like I said, the plants still look fine. That may explain why I never see any adult gnats around. I will now do some more reading on springtails and experiment with some H2O2.

I have gotten lax this winter about letting foreign material anywhere inside my house. I bought some supplies from a greenhouse, some from a grow store, a friend gave me a plant that I put into quarantine for mites but didn't inspect the dirt, and the gf has been sneaking in house plants. There is four good ways to ruin a crop and I should know better at my age. Thanks again guys.

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Ack, your gf is bringing plants into the house? Tell her to claim a 3x3ft section and build a special quarantine for -her- plants.. and teach her how to do peroxide soil drenches and other things to make sure she doesn't wipe out your crops bro - seriously.

70's natureboy said:

Thanks a lot guys!.. In my reading I came across a mention of springtails and it jumped right out at me. They do seem to be lively little buggers, like they are swinging a tail around. And the plants seem to be growing fine. I was paranoid that they would be eating my roots but like I said, the plants still look fine. That may explain why I never see any adult gnats around. I will now do some more reading on springtails and experiment with some H2O2.

I have gotten lax this winter about letting foreign material anywhere inside my house. I bought some supplies from a greenhouse, some from a grow store, a friend gave me a plant that I put into quarantine for mites but didn't inspect the dirt, and the gf has been sneaking in house plants. There is four good ways to ruin a crop and I should know better at my age. Thanks again guys.

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the 2nd paragraph has the answer you seek, weedhopper

I just had my first encounter with these little guys and I have narrowed it down to springtails similar to this one http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/image/109144092 which is magnified many times. Basically they look like smaller then grains of rice almost like grass pollen that moves. I got them in my ebb and gro buckets. Since you don't look in the buckets when plants get a certain size I had no idea they were there and when i harvested and took buckets up each lower bucket had few thousand in each one. Looked like a moving surface of yellowish white on the water surface. I got freaked at first though I had water lice aka root aphids. Since grow was over I washed entire system using H202 and bleach. Scrubbed buckets washed hydroton, scrubbed res and flushed it through the lines. There were millions in the buckets I am guessing from the Fox Farm Big bloom build up which is organic matter. never had them before they make you feel like your itchy when you see them lol. Like others I have read they aren't really bad and can be good in adding plant matter and fungi break down. Some say they are good for mold prevention. I don't know but I felt they needed to go so I hit them. I left hydroton out last 4 days drying to make sure they dry up or any missed eggs are dead. This was my first encounter in 2 decades with these and it does freak you out. I just prefer to grow without their help so hope they are gone and probably will go back to running a day of H2o2 right before res changes just to help. I was looking for something to run in the res but not real sure I want anything to toxic in the mix lol