Need help identifying bugs I trapped on sticky stick

[Heavily Medicated]

I agree that pH has got to be the underlying problem here. In combination with fungus gnats explains this logically. If the fungus gnat larvae gave badly damaged the roots, the plant has try to compensate for loss of roots by dumping leaves until the root system can again support the amount of foliage. I would opt for the Mosquito Bits treatment. This is a safe biological control utilizing Bt(i) bacteria that the fungus gnat larva consume and die from. Just cover the top of the soil with a thin layer and water in. Every time you feed it releases more Bt(i) into your pots. It's my go to for fungus gnats. As a matter of fact, when I prep my pops I but a thin layer about an inch below the soil surface just as a preventative. I ran out and did not use one time, and boom, fungus gnats. I put a layer of Mosquito Bits on top and watered in no more gnats. Another weird coincidence, my pH pen gradually drifted out of calibration just other day. Of course it's my bad for not routinely calibrating, easy to do and everyone is guilty of it sometime or another. If you have some reference solution, I would check the calibration.

 

[lunarman]

I agree that pH has got to be the underlying problem here. In combination with fungus gnats explains this logically. If the fungus gnat larvae gave badly damaged the roots, the plant has try to compensate for loss of roots by dumping leaves until the root system can again support the amount of foliage. I would opt for the Mosquito Bits treatment. This is a safe biological control utilizing Bt(i) bacteria that the fungus gnat larva consume and die from. Just cover the top of the soil with a thin layer and water in. Every time you feed it releases more Bt(i) into your pots. It's my go to for fungus gnats. As a matter of fact, when I prep my pops I but a thin layer about an inch below the soil surface just as a preventative. I ran out and did not use one time, and boom, fungus gnats. I put a layer of Mosquito Bits on top and watered in no more gnats. Another weird coincidence, my pH pen gradually drifted out of calibration just other day. Of course it's my bad for not routinely calibrating, easy to do and everyone is guilty of it sometime or another. If you have some reference solution, I would check the calibration.

I did recal today. The pen was out too. Good call. I'll look in to the Mosquito Bits. Going to a hyrdo store now to get some DE so maybe I'll look at your idea if they have it.

I also flushed all 6 pots today so lots of moisture in the pots now. Humidity in the tent is 80%. I left the pots out of the autopot trays to drain and dry out. And I'm putting a layer of something on top of the coco today not matter what. Want to cut off those larvae now. I also drilled holes in two of my autpots to get more air in. Now I'm kind of regretting that because of the larvae. I might have to tape over all the holes on all sides of the pots so the larvae can't hatch out the sides. I don't think DE powder will be able to stick to the sides of the pots and cut off the aeration holes I drilled.

 

[Heavily Medicated]

I tried DE once while fighting a battle with thrips. Be careful not to get it too thick or you get a glue/gummy mess that seals the top of your pots like cement.

 

[Waira]

Lunar-- you know the drill,... we need your nutes/supp's listed, dosage for res', all that,... good on the A8 probe! I think the pH is drifting up because of the nutrient uptake/root zone pH flux which is normal,... to keep both pH and charge balance inside the plant, any ion that goes in, sends out either an H+ or OH-, so something like NO3 in boots out an OH- charge equivalent,... how is the res' holding the pH? ... coco needs to be around 6.0, think more along the lines of hydro with coco, including pH availability,... 6.6 is not good!
Symptoms are mixed, and now advanced enough to muddy the diagnostic waters, but I'll try,.... I don't think pests are on the leaves...

---- weird, looks like Ca defc. in the pattern, but oddly not rusty brown,.. the light is fucking with color, is this yellow in normal light?

-- on a seedling, how young? It looks like P defc, large patches of necrosis, but unusual for a young plant,.. might be something else, not nute related,...infection of fungus?

--- I need normal light pic mate, and a close up of the leaves,... that might be more P defc. especially if the buds are developing poorly now,... high up like this is not usual, but it is advanced now so that may be in part why,... might be some K defc. too, but i can't tell in this pics,...

so, what's behind it,... you're in Autopots, coco,... you need extra Ca-Mg if you're not using coco specific nutes; flushing in coco is not wise unless there's dire need to reduce the salts in there, or a major pH issues,.. and because of coco's odd CEC properties, if you use just water, you have fucked up the CEC buffering in the coco; this is not pH, but the Ca/Mg/K thing,... coco will bind Ca very strongly, plant can't access it until the coco is sated, then the Ca will release, give-and-take, more readily,.. Mg affect to a lesser degree, but it's involved,...coco has some native K in it too,... but striahgt water will screw up this cation buffering, which can cause lockouts of Ca, Mg,...

--- the gnats can be treated with products made for them, or the mosquito products,... adults are just flying gonads, it's the larvae, in mass that can eat roots and cause problems,...
which OF product are you using, OverGrow? That's the all-in-one deal,... it has Ca, Mg, S,... but not micronutes,... depending on what you nutes are, doseage etc. you may have an underlying micronute defc'.s issue as well,... get us info! And no more flushing, even in soil, that a last resort, not a catch-all fix,.. done wrong it'll make matters worse, not better, and that too may be happening now,... restoring the CEC balance in there will be a bitch,... for coco, I hear a flushing solution must be made: RO/Di water, with 150ppm Ca-Mg, plus another 150ppm nutes, pH to 6.0; flush until the run-off is at or near input pH/ppm,....

 

[lunarman]

@Waira


Thank you for taking a look at my infirmary tent. Seems like I got a lot of patients in it.

I’m using Remo nutes as per the calculator. Supplements are Silica and Mammoth P. Also been talking to Remo about this.

I make my own Optic Foliar mix using Transport etc and add in neem oil.

Both res (one for flower and one for veg) hold PH steady at 6.

You say no pests munching leaves but what about larvae in the roots? Does it look like that is happening and affecting the plants? I have no idea what that would look like on the surface and the plants.

Lighting in pics. I always turn off HPS but leave the white COB light on for pics.

You mention P def, but the other plant in flower is getting the same nutes and light etc.

I flushed all plants with straight water before I read your post so too late on that caution. And I put the mosquito powder on and a little water again. Going to put play sand on tomorrow AM. Want to stop the bug cycle in case they are messing with my roots.

Made a fresh batch of optic foliar and neem and sprayed again today.

Also removed a lot of the yellow leaves off that one plant.

And will see how they look in the morning. Hoping I can get the them back on the res and nutes in a day or so and not have the issues you mentioned coco can have post flush. Might do a foliar spray with Remo Magnifical and Velokelp which is what Remo recommended. Or I might do nothing for a day and just let them sit and dry out a bit. And not over do the reactions with treatments.

 

[Waira]

...quite the neem oil, too much of that can start to burn the leaves,.. if no pests are present, there's no real need especially with Transport,....
Did you do what yeatster said with the potato wedge on the surface? I have no idea what level of infestation you have, starting with how many flying adults are around,... to impact the plant badly, the number of larvae would be large,.. you see any maggot-like larvae in there, or at the base? Dig around a little with a spoon,...
... different pots, plants, strains,... all make for potential differences in growing performances... once in a pot, nothing necessarily stays equal, too many other influencing factors even if all the inputs are the same...
... getting that in-pot pH right, and the CEC settled is the priority,... this is all very advanced now, best you can hope for is to slow down the progression of symptoms.... what's the EC/TDS reading in your res'? Did you put a full dose of Ca-Mg in there? Some high PK product too? I don't know Remo line well,...

 

[lunarman]

...quite the neem oil, too much of that can start to burn the leaves,.. if no pests are present, there's no real need especially with Transport,....
Did you do what yeatster said with the potato wedge on the surface? I have no idea what level of infestation you have, starting with how many flying adults are around,... to impact the plant badly, the number of larvae would be large,.. you see any maggot-like larvae in there, or at the base? Dig around a little with a spoon,...
... different pots, plants, strains,... all make for potential differences in growing performances... once in a pot, nothing necessarily stays equal, too many other influencing factors even if all the inputs are the same...
... getting that in-pot pH right, and the CEC settled is the priority,... this is all very advanced now, best you can hope for is to slow down the progression of symptoms.... what's the EC/TDS reading in your res'? Did you put a full dose of Ca-Mg in there? Some high PK product too? I don't know Remo line well,...

No leaf burn from the neem oil. I switched to spraying Remo calgmag and velokelp over the last day to give a break from optic foliar stuff. But next batch of optic foliar I will leave out the neem oil since I have another route to deal with bugs now.

I did not do the potato in the end. Did the crushed mosquito donut powder and watered it in. The next day I put a layer of sand on. I don't want to muck with the top area now that I have sand nicely on there. I think and hope I have the bug cycle stopped now.

I have both the veg and bloom reservoirs turned on now after the flushing and partial drying out. I reloaded both res after the flushing so I could with newly mixed feed done with calibrated pens.

PH in both res is rock steady at 6.0 and checked multiple times with calibrated pen. I have not stuck the PH8 probe back in the pots yet because I don't want to muck with the sand and coco and give those bugs a way back in to lay eggs just yet. But I will have to check root PH with the probe soon to see what is going on with PH at the roots.

PPM is veg res is 900. 1200 in flower res. And remo did not recommend bumping up their calmag in the mix but I did slightly increase it.

All plants are looking ok now. Not worse which is good. The youngest plants new growth looks better. The one well in to veg look better too. The flowering plants look about the same as in no change and not getting worse which is a good sign.

 

[Waira]

... is that 900/1200 ppm including the water ppm? That's pretty rich, too much I'd say,..remember, they are marinating in this solution, and under stress,.... coco/autopots should be treated more like true hydro for this, but lower ppm since the coco does have holding capacity,... check out what other Autopots users are running for ppm's,... don't worry about the A8 hole, test that pH! just collapse the hole when done....