Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Battling soil lice (or thrips?) again

My 2.5 ft emersed tank started to have soil lice (or thrips?) again after a few months. I guessed that there were remnant eggs laid in the pots of substrates which were not disposed off fully during my last attempt to submerge these pots under water for a week.

I decided to top up the water level in the tank till it went pass the top of the pots, fully submersing the substrates under water so that these lice / thrips will have no where to hide. A guppy was added to help eat any soil lice / thrips floating on the surface of the water. I will attempt to keep the water level permanently as such and see how the cryptocorynes react to such partially submersed environment......

6 comments:

TS168 said...

will it climb to the leave? hehe

illumbomb said...

Yes, they will climb onto the leaves to stay above the water but I can easily swipe them onto the water surface by running my hands over the leaves or by simply blowing across the leaves. At least they have no permanent hiding "grounds" now to breed. Haha.

TS168 said...

Why not have it totally submerse?

illumbomb said...

I am more interested to have the cryptocorynes flowering and therefore, I want to have at least part of the plants growing out of water to have higher chance of inducing flowering...

Shaihulud said...

I think those are springtails, in that case they would not hurt the crypts.

illumbomb said...

Thanks a lot for the ID Shaihulud. Although they will not harm the cryptocorynes, I would still want to keep them under control and not let my cultivation tanks become breeding grounds for these springtails.