Definitely sand, fish looks to be in great shape. It’s not a fish I’ve kept but I’m sure it’s pretty common for them to bury themselves.
Thanks Conor, that's a relief.
Regular aphids and then whitefly I expect, I would brush off the aphids, some fish happily eat them. The fish has a great little grumpy face, maybe the stuck sand helps them to camouflage in nature, or maybe the slime coat thicker if the fish is irritated by something and the sand is then sticking to it.
Thank Liam - he's probably grumpy because the daphnia are too fast for him lol - I've not seen anything flying, so not sure on the White Fly ID?
I think they're Acyrthosiphon pisum or greenfly. I think the white things are their molted exoskeletons and the colour variation is the various instars of the aphids.
I've not tried it but apparently they're attracted to yellow so you can get yellow sticky traps or make a water trap. They plagued my peppers this year and despite using soapy water, neem oil or a combination I've not been able to get rid of them.
Thanks Nick - jees, that would be a lot of moults, there's literally hundreds of the little white things. Those are the ones I put in the water and the fish don't touch or spit out, makes sense if its just an exoskeleton.
So do we think sumberging the pots for 48 hours would get rid of them, or can the aphid survive underwater for that duration?
I would go out and try and collect some Ladybird larva, but I'm not sure there'll be many around now at this point in the year?
EDIT: I see you can by the larva online for putting on your plants - have you considered this for your peppers @ScareCrow
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