Bugs eating roots? Need help identifying/solutions

mkweed

Member
Hello,
First time growing and indoors and the 2 plants have been growing strong and healthy.
This morning i watered them and saw nothing of concern, Towards their bed time checked them out and noticed a few bugs crawling around and found a ton more in one of my root riots (i think some called them rapid rooters). I have the little plastic soil holders for seedlings i have them in.
I took the plants out and killed as and removed as many as bugs as I could. Did it for about an hour, and have been checking on them.
Mind you this is after their bed time but they're in the seedling stage still and I figured killing these bugs was more important right now.
After cleaning the one plant that was infested, I cleaned the other, which had essentially one or two, probably colony seeker or something.
After cleaning them as much as I did, I removed the table in the grow room, put the plants in separate seedling plastic bed things, then I put a new table and I kept them away on small little boxes. I also put down double sided tape but i don't know if that'll do anything.

I also noticed there might be two separate types of bugs but I have no clue.

TLDR: I have bug infestation, help! need to know which bug and what to do.
pics:
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mkweed

Member
Those are ants, 3 body parts, head, thorax, abdomen. There is also a yellow ant.
Interesting so what are they doing hanging and crawling on the roots. Should I be concerned about them doing damage to the plants?
Thanks for replying
 
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Cx2H

Well-Known Member
Ants are the slave master of aphids. Unless these are pharaoh ants, those are a bee-atch to get rid of. They look just like that.
 

mkweed

Member
Ok I found a few more and killed them. I could of swore some of the other insects looked different. My thing is if theyre here making a colon, there has to be a food source. Why else would there be so many and them laying eggs. They have to be feeding off something.
Should I try to remove the plant from the root riot?
 

Cx2H

Well-Known Member
Ok I found a few more and killed them. I could of swore some of the other insects looked different. My thing is if theyre here making a colon, there has to be a food source. Why else would there be so many and them laying eggs. They have to be feeding off something.
Should I try to remove the plant from the root riot?
Gotta kill the queen. Ant traps could help.
 

tslonige

Well-Known Member
Ok I found a few more and killed them. I could of swore some of the other insects looked different. My thing is if theyre here making a colon, there has to be a food source. Why else would there be so many and them laying eggs. They have to be feeding off something.
Should I try to remove the plant from the root riot?
I would put an ant bait on top the soil so they take it back to the queen.
 

Merlin1147

Well-Known Member
Careful with ant traps and bait Around soil and plants. Most use boron as an active ingredient so be careful you don’t end up with B toxicity.
 
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