Tiny white incects/bugs crawling in my coco??

Hi I`ve got tiny little white bugs crawling in my coco, When I flood the pot with feed/water a few of them can be seen scrambling around the top of the coco. They dont like light as they look for cover again as soon as they can.

They`re about 2-3mm long and quite slim.

I`ve had springtails before, and I`m pretty sure that these are not them. They have 6 legs.

I took these photos, but please understand that these are tiny and my lens wouldn`t focus anywhere near close enough so I`ve had to seriously zoom and crop on the images and the results are not great. I`m just hoping that it may be enough to identify the lil bug, so I can determine if its a friend or foe.

Thanks for taking a look.

I cant see any bugs above the medium level, ie on the plants themselves, so I`m pretty sure its not some sort of larvae stage. I have yellow sticky traps on top of my pots and they`ve caught nothing this grow.







Anyone here that can id the critter for me?

Cheers, Toke

Alright mate sorry to hear about your bugs, it's kind of hard to tell from the pics but they do look like springtails ,they do have 6 legs how many do these have?

It's easy to confuse thrips with sprigtails tho and vica versa ,the thrips do look quite similar once they drop to the medium from the plant but if you have checked the plant and there are no little maggots on the underside of the leaves then i dunno really

you can tell springs and thrip apart by looking at the backend of them

spring tails have a more rounded blunt backend like this:





the thrips have a more pointed bum LOL , the antenna are quite different aswell.

STUPPA said:

Alright mate sorry to hear about your bugs, it's kind of hard to tell from the pics but they do look like springtails ,they do have 6 legs how many do these have?

It's easy to confuse thrips with sprigtails tho and vica versa ,the thrips do look quite similar once they drop to the medium from the plant but if you have checked the plant and there are no little maggots on the underside of the leaves then i dunno really

you can tell springs and thrip apart by looking at the backend of them

spring tails have a more rounded blunt backend like this:

the thrips have a more pointed bum LOL , the antenna are quite different aswell.

Click to expand...

Hey Stuppa, cheers mate, my eyesite aint good at real close up stuff, maybe I`ll feel their arses eh?

I`ve been very vigilant about bugs in my room and have yellow sticky traps that haven`t caught a thing, so I`m not really suspecting Aphids, and no marking on the leaves either. But I`ll go put a magnifying glass on the underside of the lower leaves, just to be absolutely sure.

Spring tails as I remember, flick themselves about but these just seem to crawl for cover.

I could do with a set of extension tubes for my camera so I can get proper photos of the lil critters.

Springtails are beneficial, or at worst harmless to the plants. . . . is that so mate?

Cheers mate, Toke

Having had a closer inspection I see that the litlle bugs are at the most 2mm long, probably between 1 & 2mm. The arse end does appear to be rounded and blunt, but they are fucking tiny, even with my reading glasses on and a magnifying glass!

Last night I just noticed the odd few, but I`ve just run a jug of nutes through a few pots and they are most definitely their in numbers, like loads of crawling around at speed. I managed to scoop a couple onto plastic and onto the nft tray, and they run around a little bit like ants and can last for quite a while out of shade.


My last experience with springtails is that they seemed desperate to get out of the light even if this meant getting to the underside of a piece of card or plastic I`d put them on, whereas these seem more persistant in finding what they want. I haven`t seen one of them do the spring flicking trick either.

I`ve thoroughly checked my plants and can see no signs of insect life whatsoever, using a mag glass and my reading specs. Also there is no sign of any leaf damage at all either.

I assume if these little tings live above the medium level and into the plants I`d be able to find them easily enough, as the pots seem to be pretty much teeming with them.

I saw one little fly earlier in the grow when I was in there a good few weeks ago now. I got the fear and as I say I`ve been vigilant and set traps in all the likely places and not caught or seen a single fly or insect since. I assume this fly just came in the room with me. If I remember correctly it flew up to the light and died.

I just cant id them definitely as springtails, as I`ve seen no spring or flicking about.

My plants look fine, they`re 18 days from the chop so I dont want to treat the with anything, but I do want to reuse my coco for the next grow. If they`re beneficial all is cool, but if they`re not or can be harmful in any way then I`d like to get rid with something after the chop so its all cool to go next time around.

I.D,ing them is the problem as I cant take clear enough photos to show you.

Cheers, Toke

hey tokesome, have you checked your leafs for them and their possible eggs ? (you're going to need a 50x magnifying glass at least)

to me it pretty much looks like a spidermite

greets
fred b

No mate, they`re in the medium, there are no signs of any life or damage to the leafs. I`ve dealt with spidermites several times over the years. Thanks though.

Toke

BUMP MORE PICS FOR ID

BUMP MORE PICS FOR ID

Hi, I tried to take some more pics today, not much better, but hopefully it might be enough for someone to give me a positive ID on them.



Here, they`re in the bottom right corner. That`s the stalk of one of the plants you can see for scale.




In this one you can see there are a few of them crawling about.





You can see here that it has a rounded blunt tail as described by Stuppa above, so that should rule out da nasty Aphids.




I gather that Springtails, if that`s what they are, are beneficial, can anybody tell me why. If they contribute to the good quality of the root zone I`ll forget about them and let them get on with their business.

Thanks, Toke

Looking at the clearer pics now toke i don't think it is springtail's they look more like mites or another type of insect to me now esp in the last pic , they def don't look like spider mites tho. Not sure what what it is mate .

I had these or something real similar in coco pots. They move real quick and stay around the top couple inches of the soil. They like to run around the lid of the pots. So small you don't notice them until you get real real close. They are a type of mite, ID is very tough without sending them to some sort of pest expert, because of their tiny size and the fact that there are thousands of types of mites that live in soil.

I now believe they could be hypoaspis mites. Do a google search. If this is the case, they are actually a beneficial soil mite, that eats fungus gnats, aphid, and springtails. Hypoaspis mites are sold as predatory insects at nurseries.

I've seen a bunch of these in the bottom of my coco bags and been wondering what they are

gdawg said:

I've seen a bunch of these in the bottom of my coco bags and been wondering what they are

Click to expand...

Not new coco bags, surely?

I kinda like the idea of supporting an army of do gooders, and kinda taking to them. I certainly dont want to treat the coco at the end of the run if I can avoid it.

Thanks Real Ting, I`ll check them out. They dont seem to be doing any harm and not on the plants and the plants don`t seem to mind them there. I though I had springtails before, maybe that`s why these are here now, munch, munch!


Cheers, Toke

Can you say "Root Aphids."

root aphids.

root aphids.

i agree with the above post.....was going to say the same. just got through a bout with those fuckers. search Root Aphid threads for photo verification.

With root aphids in these numbers my plants would be suffering and I`d be seeing some insect life on the plants themselves and there is seriously nothing on them at all, they`d be bigger and they`d be a different shape, the root aphid has a pointy tail.

Literally loads of them in every pot near the surface, I`m not pulling one at this stage to check further down. Non of the associated problems found with root aphids are showing in my plants, they look a picture of health. I`ve been growing over 20yrs and would be able to see insects on my plants, no matter how small, and spot the damage, there is non of either.

No signs of any insect damage, surely you all agree I`d have some signs if they were root aphids?



Cheers, Toke

Ps. Do we even get Root Aphids in the UK??

i had them when i had root aphids... i dont know if they are a smaller stage of life or what.... might not be a aphid but i dont want them in...

How long does it take for an infestation of root aphids to take hold, ie, numbers of them in every pot?

Would I not be seeing some of the tell tale signs, such as plants not feeding, looking rough, run offs going wild, insects on at least the underside of the lower leaves. . . I have none of these, surely that wouldn`t be the case if they were the dreaded root aphid?

Do we get them here in the uk? I`ve never known of an infestation of root aphids amongst my friends etc in over 20yrs in the UK.

Its time I did an update on my grow diary with photo`s of the crop, its looking good health wise.

Are there any signs that will definitely give me the answer as to what these are?

I look at google images for both the hypoaspis mites and the root aphid, they look very similar along with many other soil dwelling mites.

Cheers, Toke

I think the most important thing is are your plants showing any signs of distress?
If not then I suggest you drive on.
If you want to get a look at them, get a piece of clear packing tape and make a loop so the sticky side is out.
Then, when you see one, just touch it with the tape and it should stick to it. You should be able to see it with a 30X scope.
I've had a mite that lives in the medium and it fucked my plants up at week 2. If you had soil mites or root aphids you would definately see some signs of damage starting with the lower fan leaves.
For some reason, I cannot see your pics.
Do these fucks jump at all if you try to touch it?

Sticky Tape nice one mate, I`ll give that a go and try and get a more detailed photo up.

Yeah as I said I cant see any signs of damage or insects on my leaves at all.

No mate, I had spring tails a grow or two back, they aint springy in their escape at all.

Plants dont look stressed at all in any way, except for a touch of tip burn on the Armageddon.

I am dealing with off gassing issues I believe and suffering Mg type deficiencies, but its not down to these critters as an improved air circulation and water supply and it cleared those issues up. I`ve had the sticky yellow fly traps sitting on top of the pots and not caught a single fly in the room for the entire grow.

Thanks, Toke

PoopyTeaBags said:

i had them when i had root aphids... i dont know if they are a smaller stage of life or what.... might not be a aphid but i dont want them in...

Click to expand...

I think that these mites could be a natural predators of root aphids. Maybe the coco that came in with root aphids also came in with these predators, and having an RA population allows these to flourish.

I had root aphids before, used bayer tree and shrub (imidacloparid), as well as spectracide triazicide. Imidacloparid is supposed to be pretty effective on root aphids, it did nothing to the fast moving whitish mites. The spectracide knocked down their population quite a bit. Since then I have seen no flyers, and I've been keeping track with sticky yellow aphid traps. There are still some of the white soil mites hanging around.

Root quality and growth is great.

@ tokesome Naw when I dump the coco rootballs outside in the garden I see em mostly on the bottom. My plants look healthy and havent noticed any bug damage