# Tropical host plant for Aphids



## rabu92 (Mar 9, 2013)

When I saw loads of aphids on my terrarium plant I freaked and searched how to get rid of them without pesticides as I thought they would kill my plants. 
Little did I know (I don't have frogs yet) people actually want them as feeding insects. 

The aphids seem to love this plant: *Doryopteris cordata* or Antenna fern. 
I don't know if this is common knowledge but I thought I'd share this. They seem to prefer the antenna leaves and are barely on the main leaves (bottom ones). They also haven't touched any of my other plants.(pics of the setup)

Picture of the aphids on the Antenna leaves. (little over a week of growth)


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## dipox35 (Jan 6, 2008)

That's awesome, are they reproducing in your terrarium? Where do u get antenna fern from?


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## rabu92 (Mar 9, 2013)

It's a dutch company: Araflora

I have to remove the aphids every week, so yeah they pretty much don't stop growing and have yet to colonize any of the other plants. Oh and they grow on the bottom leaves as well, just not as abundant as on the antenna leaves.


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## rigel10 (Jun 1, 2012)

Do you have frogs in this viv? If not, put frogs. Frogs will eat all those aphids in few weeks.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Well here are the aphids..
Berkshire Biological - Insects

And here is the fern...
Fern - Doryopteris cordata

Ok guys get to work, let me know how it goes... to broke to to it myself right now


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## rabu92 (Mar 9, 2013)

Haha, I guess I have a head start on this one. 

My thoughts:
I doubt the fern is a good plant for cultures (in terms of production speed). The way I see it: 
- Produce the aphids with the fresh pea shoot method. 
- Have a fern in the viv to place the aphids onto.

The majority of the aphids will stay on the antenna leaves, which puts them out of reach for the frogs (if the fern is placed strategically). Advantage: 
- Eventually the aphids will fall or move down causing them to be eaten gradually over time.
- They have a chance to reproduce inside the viv

So all you have to do is make a new pea shoot culture and repopulate the fern whenever the aphids run out.

Now the question is, how long will the aphids be able to survive inside the viv on the fern? Hopefully indefinitely, possibly only a few days... this is where data is needed


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## goof901 (Jan 9, 2012)

except the fern needs to grow faster than the aphids can eat it...


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

problem:

aphids are often host plant specific. The aphids that love your fern might not take to pea culture.

you dont know what type of aphid you have and if they have a penchance for other types of terrarium plant, which could lead you to lose a lot of valuable plants. 


Better to just culture a host specific pea aphid and feed off as needed


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## rabu92 (Mar 9, 2013)

frogparty said:


> problem:
> 
> aphids are often host plant specific. The aphids that love your fern might not take to pea culture.
> 
> ...


So it's best to get rid of them. How can I do this without frogs? 
The main tank isn't ready yet and when it is, I plan on letting it grow out for a few weeks before adding frogs.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Peas placed into viv should sprout. Problem solved.


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