spider mites or soil mites? help to confirm

cs70 · Oct 16, 2011

hi

my girls are in 5th week flowering and last feeding i find very tiny little white bugs crawling on the pots and soil ,in microscope they looks similar to spider mites but smaller,after searching long ,i couldnt find any under leaves or on the leaves and i spray with neem oil based organic spray same day try to avoid buds, and the next day ,that removed some of them but some still crawl on the pots and soil ,no little spots on the leaves ,

after searching the forums find this thread that looks similar

http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-marijuana-growing/568059-little-white-bugs-soil.html

someone else had expirience with this bugs?

i am using airpots
thx :thank you:

best regards
greets to scroger :tiphat:

MIway · Oct 16, 2011

I saw a red one... could be one of the predatory soil mites... oribatid mite or possibly a gamasid mite. I've had my dealings with these critters... breed by the hundreds to thousands depending on the species... some are really, really tough, others die off w/o a whimper. None of em caused my plants any harm whatsoever, but by the end of the run, their dried up carcasses would form dust balls on the floor... the truth. Good luck killing the really vigorous ones... they beat me. But really, they are beneficial & purely a nuisance... assuming they are soil mites. Try a band of tanglefoot at the base of your stalks... will keep em from crawling up the plant & dieing on the lower nugs... u can see the collection of their dead bodies right along with your trich's. Any spot where the leaves/branches touch the soil/ground they can crawl onto the nugs too.

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/soil_mite.htm

http://www.massey.ac.nz/~maminor/mites.html

majortom9 · Oct 16, 2011

I cant hardly tell a honeybee from an earth worm so if I saw that thing I would be slingin napalm in my grow box. I had never heard of predatory soil mites until now. If they are good they would probably be very fragile so neem may not be the best thing for them. If they are not then you are dealing with the Borg.You say you saw them on the pots and in the soil, spider mites prefer the leafs and flowers of a plant over the soil. Maybe you got some good ones. Interesting critter there.

overgrowit · Oct 17, 2011

might be the "micro" version of root aphid

check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH2DJDHR5Q4

pinecone · Oct 17, 2011

There are 100s if not 1000s of varieties of soil mites so you really would need an expert to identify a species. Most of them feed on bacteria, fungi, or other mites and will cause your plants no harm. I look at them as beneficial as they help cycle nutrients and keep populations of more harmful bugs in check.

I've had the larger white soil mites and several varieties of smaller, faster moving, soil mites. None of them are problematic. The picture below is a piece of stem that I pulled from my mulch layer.

Pine

Junkhead · Oct 17, 2011

Seen these guys too I was worried at first but they are harmless like the poster above said. You can always see em crawling fast on my plastic pots.

cs70 · Oct 17, 2011

hi

hi

overgrowit said:
might be the "micro" version of root aphid

check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH2DJDHR5Q4

hey

no i dont think they are root aphids ,they crawl much slower than in the video u send me the link and they dont looks the same under microscope ,and the plants do fine so far no damage so far ,in the video the guy say after 2 days the plant is almost dead ,me i have them almost a week and the girls do fine
thx for help :thank you:

cs70 · Oct 17, 2011

hi

hi

MIway said:
I saw a red one... could be one of the predatory soil mites... oribatid mite or possibly a gamasid mite. I've had my dealings with these critters... breed by the hundreds to thousands depending on the species... some are really, really tough, others die off w/o a whimper. None of em caused my plants any harm whatsoever, but by the end of the run, their dried up carcasses would form dust balls on the floor... the truth. Good luck killing the really vigorous ones... they beat me. But really, they are beneficial & purely a nuisance... assuming they are soil mites. Try a band of tanglefoot at the base of your stalks... will keep em from crawling up the plant & dieing on the lower nugs... u can see the collection of their dead bodies right along with your trich's. Any spot where the leaves/branches touch the soil/ground they can crawl onto the nugs too.

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/soil_mite.htm

http://www.massey.ac.nz/~maminor/mites.html

hi thx for info ,i read both websites before already ,and seems like its exactly what i have or similar species ,thx for info on band of tanglefoot ,i will buy it today and put around stems ,as long they dont crawl in nugs i am ok with them ,i have 3 weeks till harvest
thx
best regards :tiphat:

cs70 · Oct 17, 2011

hey guys thx for help
i will post in few days about the development of the bugs ,now i feel already better ,i was like crazy angry when i saw them at first ,i wash floor with bleach and everywhere like crazy every day and really paranoid about cleanness ,no idea where they come from ,maybe my organic soil
thx again for looking and helping

best regards

High Country · Oct 17, 2011

Now these are spider mites from a grow of mine some time back.

IF YOU SEE

WEBS LIKE THIS

YOU ARE FUCKED

\
BIG TIME!

cs70 · Oct 17, 2011

High Country said:
Now these are spider mites from a grow of mine some time back.

IF YOU SEE

WEBS LIKE THIS

YOU ARE FUCKED

\
BIG TIME!

hey yeah man i can imagine it sucks big time ,but those web develop over night or slowly?u cant do anything about it or try to slow it down?
i read ppl fight the spider mites with success
thx best regards :thank you:

qupee · Oct 17, 2011

cs70 said:
hey yeah man i can imagine it sucks big time ,but those web develop over night or slowly?u cant do anything about it or try to slow it down?
i read ppl fight the spider mites with success
thx best regards

In my experience (limited, one infestation of spider mites - successfully eliminated with single application of Forbid 4F), you would have to miss the mites for quite some time before you had that many webs (days up to a week, maybe even two - though I'm sure some people's mites get worse more quickly than mine).

GeorgeSmiley · Oct 17, 2011

spider mite = slow moving, almost always found on the leaves and stems etc

Soil mite = fast moving mofo's.... predators, stay in the soil area or on lips and sides of pots.

The fast moving part is most obvious

I got hypoapsis mites to deal with fungus gnat larvae. Ive added them from pot to pot for over a year now. They range in size and they have some red-brown-white color variations.

And I see this get labeled as a rogue form of a "mini" or "micro" root aphid. They really have nothing in common with an aphid as a species or a root aphid specifically. except that they're a bug. Different body than aphids, different legs, different "snout" different behavior...... Ive had these under 10x, 30x 60x and they're soil mites.

These are very tiny, magnified 10x and photo'd. That is the tiny lip of a #1 nursery pot. These in the photo were very hard to see at all till they were against the black pot

You may have something different, always possible.

Smiley

azad · Oct 17, 2011

I put a few mm of Silver sand on the top of my pots,that helps transpiration loss and takes care of some pests too..

cs70 · Oct 17, 2011

yeah the same bugs!!!!!

yeah the same bugs!!!!!

GeorgeSmiley said:
spider mite = slow moving, almost always found on the leaves and stems etc

Soil mite = fast moving mofo's.... predators, stay in the soil area or on lips and sides of pots.

The fast moving part is most obvious

I got hypoapsis mites to deal with fungus gnat larvae. Ive added them from pot to pot for over a year now. They range in size and they have some red-brown-white color variations.

And I see this get labeled as a rogue form of a "mini" or "micro" root aphid. They really have nothing in common with an aphid as a species or a root aphid specifically. except that they're a bug. Different body than aphids, different legs, different "snout" different behavior...... Ive had these under 10x, 30x 60x and they're soil mites.

These are very tiny, magnified 10x and photo'd. That is the tiny lip of a #1 nursery pot. These in the photo were very hard to see at all till they were against the black pot

You may have something different, always possible.

Smiley

hi

yes its exactly the bugs i have ,the colour a bit yellowish ,but with hid lamp and flash u cant really tell but they are the same
today i searched the leaves and stems and couldnt see any bugs on the plants itself
they are really tiny ,and move fast but not so fast ,faster than spider mites anyway lol
so i am happy now i was like buying 2 different organic sprays and spray the hell out on them like 1 liter on on plant lol
thx for your time and pics u posted very helpfull and nice vie of the bugs hahahahaha
thx best regards :tiphat:

Hank Hemp · Oct 18, 2011

Weeks

Weeks

cs70 said:
hey yeah man i can imagine it sucks big time ,but those web develop over night or slowly?u cant do anything about it or try to slow it down?
i read ppl fight the spider mites with success
thx best regards

It would take a while to get that bad. That's the worst I've ever seen and I've seen some bad spider mite infestations.

cs70 · Oct 19, 2011

hey

hey

Hank Hemp said:
It would take a while to get that bad. That's the worst I've ever seen and I've seen some bad spider mite infestations.

hi
thats exactly what i was thinking ,i would see by now bugs under leaves or webs ,but after 1 week with bugs ,i see they dont touch the plants at all ,only in the soil and pots they crawl
thx for info
best regards :tiphat:

0zymurgy · Nov 15, 2012

Thrips slaughtered mysteriously

Thrips slaughtered mysteriously

I got lucky. Bringing a plant inside after 3 nights out, it got thrips. But it was adjacent to hot peppers, even touching the leaves. Hot pepper pollen is apparently a breeding reactor for beneficial mites ! A. Cucumeris mites were vectored from my hot peppers in the back yard. An 8x magnifier shows white mites pulling the thrip eggs out of the leaves. I have seen this 3 times now, right in front of my face. They get scared and run from my fingers, but they dont let go of the egg. Little mites running around with a job to do. Insane AI terminators from hell have come to save my ass. Sucks to be a thrip when there's predator mites ! Its like the game grid from the old tron movie - no place to hide on the grid. Sayonara thrips. Bastards died out after a week. Self limiting infestation. 1st instar completely wiped out, leaving no eggs and a couple straggling adults. I think the mites are in the soil too-so using tanglefoot would defeat this method. They cant run up the stem to eat the eggs if you block 'em. Not sure if these are related to hypoapsis mites - they are not affecting fungus gnat larvae in any way. My hot peppers are loaded with these mites in proximity to the pollen. (Thai Dragon , Jalapeno)

mota_activistJ · Nov 23, 2013

If they are fast and light brown or almost look white they are usually harmless in my experience growing TLO style! If they start over taking your soil u can put out watermelon for 24hours. The next day the melon will be covered with a lot of mites! Repeat as needed till u get them under control! I got mine from my earthworm bin! Basically harmless if you don't see them on the bottom of ur leaves. Good Luck

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