A hydroponic growing media may seem like a safe space with how much control you have over the light, nutrients, and temperature. But there are still pests that cause lots of trouble, and even if you’ve taken care to secure everything, these pets can come in, and they can impact the growing of these plants too. 

What do you do in this case? Read on to find out. 

Aphids 

Aphids are subtle, and usually you don’t even notice these little things until they’ve sucked up and grown in numbers beyond your control. Without the nutrients circulating about due to these guys, they do deprive and get stunted. 

You can find these through the following: 

• White skin molts 
• Yellowed leaves 
• Sap buildup 
• Stunted growth of the plant 

What you do is simple. you defoliate, and also use organic types of insecticides on the plant as well in order to treat this pest before it gets any worse. 

Root Aphids 

These are much easier to spot in hydroponic media simply because they are pretty small, white critters that crate a chalky white color on the plant root. It also causes stunted growth and leaves which are wilted as well. 

The treatment for this is pretty simple. first you’ve got killer dip, which is where you put together a bucket of the soap solution, picking up the plants and putting the root in there, and then the rinse bucket. 

You can also with this, scrub down the bucket with a peroxide solution to take care of this. 

Spider Mites 

They are a type of mite that crates a silk web that’s used to protect these colonies from their predators. They usually are on the underside of your leaves, and it pierces the plant tissue so it’s fed on cells. Once it’s the biggest size it can be, that’s when they damage the plant. 

You can usually find this in the mites themselves, webs, eggs that are small white specks, and the growth is stunted. 

If you find this, the first thing that you need to do is turn the temperature down so that it kills them off. Don’t be afraid to prune places that are overcome by eggs to stop the spread. 

With this one, you can also help by introducing insects that eat these guys. 

Finally, apply insecticidal soaps to the area that’s in line with the guidance of the product. 

Gnats 

These are a crucial part of the hydroponic ecology, and while it may be a predator, it can potentially be helpful. 

That’s because they can clean up the soil, decomposing the organic matter, and even carry fungal and pollen spores. These guys are both good, but they do damage the root hairs, and the adults can carry diseases which impact the plant itself. 

You usually see this through maggots, browned leaves, spotted and paled leaves, dropping kinds of plants, and seedlings which collapse. 

How do you kill this the best way is through yellow sticky traps, and also through adding bacteria that’s beneficial to this, so that they can send those gnats away. 

Whiteflies 

Finally, we’ve got whiteflies, which are similar to aphids, and they create a sap on the tissue itself, which leads to many symptoms. This can include buzzing of the canopies, a grouping of eggs on the underside, white spots on top of these leaves, the leaves yellowing, and a loss of the vigor too of the cannbis plant. 

The solution is to include predatory insects such as ladybugs, and also wipe these guys away.