little bugs living in hydroton & all around roots that are above water...

so yeah. if you lift up the dwc bucket lid you can see a bunch of little mite looking bugs chilling tough on the netpot where the roots are coming out...eating the roots maybe? the babies are clear/tan and the bigger ones are black. the black ones are now crawling out of the hydroton and out of the buckets. they crawl really slowly...there are a bunch all over the floor of the grow cab. wtf? are these just immature fungus gnats that have yet to sprout their wings or something?

anyone have experience with these? should i be worried about roots getting eaten? best way to contain/kill?

If they are winged, but they can't fly they are most likely root aphids. Very difficult to get rid of.

keylime

Them are them damn root aphids, and they will start migrating up the stalks into the plants so you need to smear the stalks with tanglefoot, it is a nasty sticky mess like vasiline mixed with contact cement. you can also use double sided sticky tape.
There needs to be at least 2-3 inches of the stalk covered. this will catch the ones that are on the move, also a stripe around the container near the bottom.thats for containment,also if there are lots this sticky stuff will need replaced
Now the treatment, Pyrethem spray kills them

Daddy

Could be fungus gnats,too.. The larvae love roots.:thumbsup:

For this problem I am implementing two solutions next go round which probably wont work for you as I grow in coco. First is that I wont be using open sided pots for my next grow as I dont want the coco exposed on the sides which allows bugs access. Second thing I am changing is to start adding play sand over the top inch of the media which might work for you. The sand will smother the bugs and prevent anything from being able to breath or crawl out or in.

thanks for the help guys. gonna go buy some tanglefoot.

Azamax as a root drench. :thumbsup: