Little White Bugs in My Roots (coco)

[Bad Habits]

So last night I was doing my daily waterings, and I noticed these little tiny white bugs crawling around INSIDE my coco around the roots.

I root all my clones in straight canna coco, and put them in clear 18oz solo cups which I then place inside a blue solo cup, so that I can pull the clear cup out to examine the roots. I examine the roots pretty much every day.

So I had one tray in my closet that had 3 clones in the cups that were rooted about 5 weeks ago, and one more clone in a bigger black pot that was a little older. So I pull the clones out to look at the roots, and I notice these little tiny white bugs crawling around around the roots (in the middle of the coco, not the top). They blend in almost perfectly with the roots, and if you don't stop and look at them for a little bit it would be very easy to overlook. They are about 1mm in length, and skinny. Looks like the same shape as a piece of graphite you would use in a mechanical pencil, except white; their length is longer than their width. They were too small to take a picture of.

I noticed that these 3 particular clones had been growing extremely slowly, and all of their stems had turned purple. They had been in the solo cups for 5 weeks, and compared to other clones I had in a different tray which were only about 2 weeks old they were much smaller. I thought it was maybe just because they were smaller cuts from the plants, and the root system appeared to be healthy.

Something else I noticed was that on the top of the coco there were a few little white blotches, maybe like 3mm in diamater, which almost looked like mold. Again didn't think too much of it before, but now thinking about it I wonder if they are the insects eggs?

So I went to my other cabinet and looked through about 10 clones all in clear solo cups, and only noticed 1 tiny one of these insects in 1 of the cups, whereas in the other 3 cups there were quite a few in each one.

Either way, I immediate removed that entire tray (4 plants total) from the garden. Right next to that tray I had 6 larger plants in 1 gallon pots that I had just transplanted to 5 gal pots right before, that appeared to be perfectly healthy, and I didn't notice anything when I was transplanting them. Next to that tray were some more larger plants in 5 gal pots, and examining the foliage I noticed there was a lot of damaged leaves in the bottom 1/3rd of the plant. Like rust colored spots and stuff.

Problem is, once I transplant them out of the solo cups into bigger containers 1) you can't see the middle of the coco/roots because it's in a black container and 2) I put them in a coco/pearlite mix, so even if there were white spots at the top of the coco I wouldn't be able to tell because it would blend in with the pearlite.

At first I thought they might have been root aphids, because my buddy has them so I thought I might have transplanted them to my garden. I described the shape to him and he said it didn't fit the description.

I'm guessing that despite removing the tray where they were readily apparent there is most likely eggs in other containers and/or bugs in the coco I just can't see?

After going through the pest stickies they look like they might be the beginning stages of thrips, but I only saw them in the middle of the cup, buried in the coco/roots, and haven't seen anything on the top of the coco or on any leaves or anything so far.

Anyone have any idea what these might be??? I'm gonna try and get some pics of the damaged foliage on the larger plants and the white spots on the infected cups (currently just have them sitting quarantined outside) tonight.

Really sucks because I've taken so much care to try and keep my garden pest-free from the start (maintaining sterile environment, after seeing my buddy who has pests always putting my clothes in the dryer on high heat for 20mins, taking a shower, etc).



How long has this problem been going on? noticed for the first time last night

What system are you running? (DWC? Ebb flow? Aero? Water Farm? Flood Tables? and so on...) coco drain to waste

What STRAIN are you growing? Alphakronik Las Vegas Purple Kush BX

What was the establishing technique? (Were the seed or clone?) noticed them in 4 clones, also have plants from seed in the same vicinity

What is the age of your plants? in the plants I saw them in, about 5 weeks old

How tall are the plants? 2.5ish inches, topped

What PHASE are the plants in? (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? clones rooted about 5 weeks ago

What substrate/medium are you using?(Hydroton, RockWool etc.) canna coco (straight coco)

What is the Water temperature? 68f

What color are your roots? White? Brown? Are your roots slimy? primarily white

What Nutrient's are you using?(If growing soiless) rapid start, floranova grow, calmag

How often are you feeding? (If using soiless) once a day to about 10-20% runoff

How often are you giving nutrients? (If using soiless)
nutes 2 days, phed water 1 day, repeat

What size bulb are you using? about 400w of floros

What is the distance to the canopy? 4ish inches

What is your RH Factor(Relative Humidity)? 30-50%

What is the canopy temperature? 75ish f

What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include flucutaion range) 65-75ish

What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.)
plants are in a closet with a small portable fan at the bottom of the door opening blowing air up through the closet

Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ? window is cracked up an inch in the closet with a screen

Is the fan blowing directly at plants? on a couple of the bigger ones, but not the ones I noticed the bugs in

Is your water HARD or SOFT? tap

Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched topped about a week ago

Have any pest chemicals been used? If so, What and When? no

 

[Bad Habits]

okay so I downloaded some shitty magnifying app on my phone and managed to snap a pic of one of the buggers:

I also found a little microscope head and looked at em under it: they basically look like a clear/white cock (serious). Like a shaft body with a mushroom head, with 2 antenna coming out of the head. Had maybe like 4-8 legs, couldn't really count because they were so small.

 

[d3cryption]

Gnat larve ?

 

[smailer]

so looks like

name is : Collembola
if it the same with your bugs it's not so danger, but not so good.
they don't make any harm to your plant. but they are sign what your medium is too wet and you really need to reduce your watering volume.
Collembola eats deadly organics, usually dead roots what damaged by overwatering.

Also this bugs can be cause of some bacterial disease.

 

[Bad Habits]

Gnat larve ?

okay so I started googling fungas gnat larvae, and they looked a little bit different.

However, it lead me to this pic:

and after looking at them under the scope, I'm about 90% sure those are the same thing.

Has anyone ever had spring tails, or know how to get rid of them??

 

[Bad Habits]

so looks like View Image[URL]
name is : Collembola
if it the same with your bugs it's not so danger, but not so good.
they don't make any harm to your plant. but they are sign what your medium is too wet and you really need to reduce your watering volume.
Collembola eats deadly organics, usually dead roots what damaged by overwatering.

Also this bugs can be cause of some bacterial disease.

looks like you replied right as I was typing my reply, and we came to the same conclusion! guess collembola is the scientific name for spring tails...

"you can't overwater coco" they said! ha, guess watering once a day to run off with no pearlite in the mix is apparently enough for these buggers to surface... where da fuck do they come from though?!? maybe came in my bag of coco?

and more important;y... how do I get rid of them? Doin some googling now, but not finding too much on effective treatments other than drying out the medium which is only a temporary solution.

 

[smailer]

really I was have same issue, but they don't disturb me.
they goes out when conditions become more dry, no food for bugs- and they leave your pots.
try to reduce amount of watering.

 

[Bad Habits]

So after a few hours of research last night it seemed like there was somewhat of a divide on the perception of these little bugs. Half seem to think they are actually beneficial because they eat dead and decaying matter, so they are symbiotic in a sense. Other half say that when they run out of that matter to eat they end up eating the root tips, which can cause stunted growth and, anecdotally, lower yields as compared to the same plants without them.

Seems like it would be a good idea to get rid of them for piece of mind, but there doesn't appear to be any consensus on what the best way is other than drying out the media, which is potentially dangerous when considering I am in coco.

Couple products I saw mentioned:
bifenthrin with diatomaceous earth
abamectin
bayer tree and shrub
azatrol
SM-90

although there couldn't find any cross references on any of them with other people verifying their use with success.

Has anyone here used any of these products successfully when dealing with spring tails?

really I was have same issue, but they don't disturb me.
they goes out when conditions become more dry, no food for bugs- and they leave your pots.
try to reduce amount of watering.

Ya that'll definitely be step 1! Thanks for dropping in Smailer

 

[theother]

I see springtails periodically, I suspect they come from infected bags of coco. IMHO they don't seem to do much harm but I have heard otherwise from reputable sources. I have found that in coco as long as you are feeding synthetics SM-90 gets rid of them pretty well. You can also run a little DM zone (chloramine) and that will keep things completely sterile for about a week. I am now a fan of running sm-90 at 2 mls a gallon all the time in my coco. This seems to sort of act as a root zone conditioner as well as knocking out things like springtails. Also on a side note, for whatever reason it seems to increase uptake (saw burnt tips off the same res after I added the sm-90, so that's never a bad thing)

I do not think I would do any drastic root drenches of pesticide in flower to get rid of them, they just don't seem to hurt that much. Also they don't seem to colonize long term IME, I have had them one cycle and then not the next a couple times.

 

[Bad Habits]

I see springtails periodically, I suspect they come from infected bags of coco. IMHO they don't seem to do much harm but I have heard otherwise from reputable sources. I have found that in coco as long as you are feeding synthetics SM-90 gets rid of them pretty well. You can also run a little DM zone (chloramine) and that will keep things completely sterile for about a week. I am now a fan of running sm-90 at 2 mls a gallon all the time in my coco. This seems to sort of act as a root zone conditioner as well as knocking out things like springtails. Also on a side note, for whatever reason it seems to increase uptake (saw burnt tips off the same res after I added the sm-90, so that's never a bad thing)

I do not think I would do any drastic root drenches of pesticide in flower to get rid of them, they just don't seem to hurt that much. Also they don't seem to colonize long term IME, I have had them one cycle and then not the next a couple times.

Thanks for the response man. After doing more research last night I decided to go with some "Seven" from Garden Tech which I picked up at HD. Today I dusted the top of all my plants with it and watered it in.

I also transplanted all of the rooted clones from the solo cups to 1 gal pots (except for the original tray where I saw the springtails, which is still just sitting outside on my balcony). I haven't seen any evidence of the springtails outside of that one tray, but wanted to play it safe so to speak, especially as I'm slowly moving plants into a new CGE room which I want to keep as pest-free as possible.

However, now that I don't have any plants in the clear solo cups it will make the monitoring of the situation a little bit more difficult, as I haven't seen any on the topsoil area, and because I keep my plants trained low and squat it's actually hard to see the top of the coco because there are leaves in the way even at the very bottom. Gonna just have to keep an eye on things and see if I notice more of em I guess, but hopefully the Seven knocks all of em out if there are more colonizing my bigger plants as well.

 

[theother]

Thanks for the response man. After doing more research last night I decided to go with some "Seven" from Garden Tech which I picked up at HD. Today I dusted the top of all my plants with it and watered it in.

I also transplanted all of the rooted clones from the solo cups to 1 gal pots (except for the original tray where I saw the springtails, which is still just sitting outside on my balcony). I haven't seen any evidence of the springtails outside of that one tray, but wanted to play it safe so to speak, especially as I'm slowly moving plants into a new CGE room which I want to keep as pest-free as possible.

However, now that I don't have any plants in the clear solo cups it will make the monitoring of the situation a little bit more difficult, as I haven't seen any on the topsoil area, and because I keep my plants trained low and squat it's actually hard to see the top of the coco because there are leaves in the way even at the very bottom. Gonna just have to keep an eye on things and see if I notice more of em I guess, but hopefully the Seven knocks all of em out if there are more colonizing my bigger plants as well.

Check your runoff, a lot of times if they are there you can clearly see them wash out

 

[Bad Habits]

Check your runoff, a lot of times if they are there you can clearly see them wash out

forgot to mention that in the previous post... ya I just started lookin at the run off the last 2 days and haven't noticed anything yet.

Today I transplanted a bunch of the clones from the solo cups (which were in a different cabinet in the same room as the plants I found with the spring tails( into the 1 gals, and tried to examine the roots up close when I had pulled em out of the cups. Didn't notice anything crawlin around, but I did see these little tiny dots that almost looked kinda crystally. Like they weren't connected to the roots, just little almost shiny specs. Wonder if those were eggs maybe?