symphilids in coco?

[yts farmer]

been having trouble with my plants for a while now and been looking into whats been causing my problems.

i was watering my plants today and in a bit of a rush so watered them a lot quicker than i do normally,when watering i notice lots and lots of what first looked liked tiny bits of dust floating in the water in the tops of my pots.

on closer inspection when the water had run through the coco thise tiny bits of what i thought were dust started moving around ontop of the coco and you could even see them going into the coco,there looked to be thousands of the buggers.

btw to the naked eye they are very tiny.look about 2-3mm long by 1mm thick (very small)

my dilema is,i have 17 plants all affected,but 14 of the plants are being flushed as we speak.

im gonna get some gnat off today to treat the 3 plants that have another couple of weeks,but should i treat the other 14 plants which are being flushed as we speak as i was planning on flushing for 10-14 days.

do the plants take up the gnat off up in any form? or doest it just stay in the media.

i have used it a few years back for fungus gnats and it stinks to high hell and am a bit worried if it will affect the taste of my dried herbs.

 

[MynameStitch]

Ya, they could be gnat larva or anything else..... I would get what you are going to try or I would get some mosquito dunks also known as BT, it works on a variety of bugs and is worth a try as well.

1/2 dunk to a gallon of water and repeat every 5 to 7 days. Without seeing a picture of the little bastards it would be hard to say if they were or not.
I would try to BT, it does kill fungus gnats in one or 2 applications. Don't have to worry about the smell like with gnat off.
Do you have any bugs that are flying around? Have you checked your leaves for damage and checked underside?

 

[yts farmer]

hello and thanks for the reply,i would put a pic up but cant find my camara at the moment.these things are so tiny i doubt i could get a decent pic anyway.

have had fungus gnats before about 3 years ago so i know what to look out for with them buggers but i dont have any flying insects whatsoever.

went to my grow shop today and was gonna get some gnat off but the guys gonna get me some other stuff tomorrow which is basicly the active ingredient in the gnat off,will find out what its called but i dont think its something you can buy over the counter.

upon closer inspection today i think i have had these things for a while.

i remove my pots by lifting the plant at the bottom of the stem and lift a little and tap the pots until it slides off,on a couple of plants as i lifted you could see the plant was gonna pop straight out of the pot minus any media which is telling me its a very bad infestaion and means some very sick plants.even on some of the pots i did take off there were sighns of root rot which makes matters worse still.

 

[yts farmer]

right,went to grow shop yesterday and this stuff that he gave me is called neudomuck.

neudomuck is very similar to gnatoff but neudomuck is super concentrated.

a small bottle of gn costs about 20quid for 250mls and neudomuck costs the same but you only get 20mls of neudo but 1ml can treat 200 litres of water so this stuff will go a very long way.also doesnt smell quite as bad as gn.

btw neudomuck is something that can be bought over the counter but googled it and theres not much info out there.also instructions were in german.

 

[yts farmer]

well just incase anybody wanted to know the neudomuck is doing what it meant to do.


2 days after the first dose you could see a big drop in bugs.gave it another dose on about day 5 to catch any that might be hatching or whatever.will be watering tomorrow so hopefully they should nearly be all gone.

 

[MynameStitch]

Good to hear, new product is always good to hear about and thanks for the update and advice on the product, as I am in the US and do not know much about over the counter stuff in Europe so it's nice to know about the products over there from the people who use them.....

What is it used for besides the bugs you are getting rid of?
What does the directions say?

Du sprist deutsche?

Ich spreche deutsche.

 

[yts farmer]

http://www.progrow.co.uk/acatalog/info_3533.html

hey stich thanks for your intrest,the above link isnt the place i bought mine but i thought id put it up for you and anyone else who may want to take a look.

all instructions were in german and i didnt pay any attention in my german lessons as a kid.

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

dont forget to follow-up a few days after you notice them gone, to make sure none got missed.... wouldnt want them to become resistant...
are they white? ive seen these before, usualy eat roots.. seen-em in my rose garden all the time, in nature you just flood the place, and the colony moves...

 

[MynameStitch]

Thank god those things are not hard to rid of like mites are, god forbid if that did happen...... would not want to see the damage those little bastards could do if they were like that.........

 

[yts farmer]

@digitalhippy:yes they are white.

they arnt hard to get rid of but for me i only discovered them by accident and they are so so tiny.

i could only notice them if i flooded the tops of my pots and they were floating on the surface.once water had drained through the coco they just disapeared below the surface to no doubt start feeding again.

 

[Guest]

they then go feeding on ya roots ,,get rid of asap ,,i hate the bastards ,,
i bet u got from compressed coco ?

 

[yts farmer]

hey there hazyfontazy,you know i think you maybe right about the compressed bricks though.

i had a total of 17 pots and all but 2 were from canna coco(50l bags) and my grow shop was waiting on a delivery of more canna coco so he gave me 2 bricks just to makwe up the difference.

i'll be wiser next time,stick to the canna brand and if not treat it with my neudomuck the first couple of weks use.

 

[MynameStitch]

A lot of times when you get them bricks they need washed too, canna washes theres good I know that, some people wash them extra to make sure, so when coco is cheaper you know it is something wrong or you have to do the washing yourself.

 

[clowntown]

What did these bugs look like? I'm starting to think I'm having a similar issue...

Only 2 plants out of 16 were affected; those 2 plants were the only ones that reused coco (I ran out after 14) from a previous run... coco with dead, rotting, non-enzyme'd roots sitting in wet pots of coco for a couple of weeks. Those two pots were crawling with these tiny little... amber-ish colored, spidermite-looking things. They were very, very tiny, with what appeared to be oval-round bodies with (at least) 3 pairs of legs, maybe 4 pairs and visible wiggling antennas (I have pretty good eyesight). Mind you, they were very very tiny, smaller than the smallest fleck of Canna Coco.

Needless to say I tossed those reused coco plants. But I have no idea what I'm dealing with, that's the problem... they look nothing like fungus gnats in MynameStitch's thread, or anything else but the mite pictures. Funny thing is, there are no signs of mite spots on the leaves, and no signs of any bugs or eggs on the foliage.

Anyways, I sprayed a round of Floramite SC, Einstein Oil (neem), and Spinosad at different times in the last 24 hours. I'm not sure what caused what, since I sprayed during the dark and didn't see the results of each product, but on those affected plants I saw LOTS of these bugs crawling around on the edges of the pots... the only dry area that wasn't soaked from the spraying. Must have been at least one of those that bothered them, but which I have no idea.

Hopefully that'll be the end of that, and I'll check back in a day and see if they come back, but what the hell am I dealing with??

 

[yts farmer]

hey there clowntown they sound like the same thing,in stich's thread they said they could be white or tan in colour.

you should get them dealt with asap as they can cause your plants untold troubles.

from what ive seen of them theytend to stay under the surface of the coco and will float to the top when your watering and like you said some will be around the sides of the pot.

 

[clowntown]

What types of symptoms should I look for?

I couldn't get them to float up, at least on the "barely affected plants" (the source plants were tossed out). I guess we'll see.

Thing is, they look NOTHING like the symphilids in that thread... or of any that I could find on Google Images. They look just like the mites, except they don't have spots and appear to have amber, possibly clear round/oval bodies (single section I think, although it's hard to tell even with a loupe because they move so fast).

 

[clowntown]

I just found out that a couple, particularly the ones in closest proximity to the heavily affected (now tossed out) plants, have a light bit of infestation under the surface. Along with these short, single(?)-sectioned little amber colored, clear-bodied(?) mite-looking things, are the exact description of the symphilids... all white and long. And along with those, were also slimy, whitish-light-grayish worm looking things. (This is all viewed through a loupe.) I'm assuming that's the larvae, I don't know...

I hope the couple of rounds of neem that I've been spraying on the surface (hope that was enough) and later watered down is/was enough to keep the reproduction down and whatnot. I've also applied several rounds of spinosad, and a single round of Floramite SC.

I'll be getting some predator nematodes just incase. Anyone have much success with them?

I will be looking into Gnatrol as a plan B just in case...

 

[FarmerTed]

Maybe you have Springtails?

Maybe you have Springtails?

There is a pic of one in my gallery if you'd like to take a look, or google it for the pic & more info. I would have added it to this post but it does'nt appear as an available pic for some reason.
Hope this helps.