crimsonecho
Well-Known Member
Have you ever used them?
i didnt “use” them they are already here so in that sense i’m already using them but i havent bought and hypoaspis from anywhere if thats what you mean

Have you ever used them?
Got far too high one night and watched two of these little guys doing battle against each other on a big chunk of some biochar in my worm bin once. Fierce little things..
@MICHI-CAN are you really advocating that having predators in your soil food web is a detriment if running organics indoors? Not trying to argue, plenty of ways to go about growing beautiful plants, but how would your organic system be "complete" if your are trying to eliminate a seemingly huge part of the soil food web?
My favorite little guys in the worm bins/pots are now springtails. Seem to be one of, if not the most, hardy of the beneficial bugs I have come across. Have completely neglected my worm bins for a long long time and they are still surviving in large numbers. At least from a quick opening of the bins here and there.
Any of you guys ever notice some type of soil mite that looks a hypoapsis mile on steroids with big pincers? Like two times the size of the hypoapsis guys and slower moving. Never nailed down what they were but could only imagine what kind of havoc they brought to the web.
Sorry for the long ramble and bouncing all over the place but wish happy grows to you all.
Bugs living in soil naturaly like springtails or hypos are no threat for plants if their population is under control. Fighting bugs like thrips, aphids or spidermites with other “beneficial” mites or “predatory” bugs like ladybug or mosquito is big bullshit.
Just picked up a fabric pot I has sitting on top of my mulch layer in the 4x8 bed. Out run several miles. That reminded me of the orbatid mite picture I wanted to throw up. @crimsonecho
I remember the first time I saw them it freaked me out, I thought my worm bin was shot. Little did I know....
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Moldy strawberriesthat snotlike moss looks kinda disgusting isnt it rofl
so they like moss i guess good guys
niceMoldy strawberries
is this a good guy or a bad guy? cause seriously I'm stepping on thatlookie what i found under a tray. silverfish.
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but the reason I ask is it sounds like it could be good or bad. Like mycho and microbes are good microbes so they could eat that which isn't good. and some bacteria and fungi are probably bad. but the next sentence says nutrients are a result of ...by fauna. I mean what fauna are they talking about, the arthropod or the microbe? Is the use of the word fauna to be something sciency sounding but completely ambiguous since fauna is all life?!
but the reason I ask is it sounds like it could be good or bad. Like mycho and microbes are good microbes so they could eat that which isn't good. and some bacteria and fungi are probably bad. but the next sentence says nutrients are a result of ...by fauna. I mean what fauna are they talking about, the arthropod or the microbe? Is the use of the word fauna to be something sciency sounding but completely ambiguous since fauna is all life?!
seeing this thread made me realize my mix is not an "organic/living" mix in any way. There is no life i can see. Not a single bit of movement (that's not microscopic).
My takeaway is this.....just because I added a bit of some EWC, Organic 3:1:4, charcoal and lime to my potting mix and let it cook for a while doesn't make it a super or living soil lol. It's working well but I don't see any springtails, mites, nematodes or anything. It grew a lot of myco during cook but that's about it. However it's the first potting mix I have made that has not had a single fungus gnat.
I'll get the hang of a living food web sooner or later.
that seems to make sense. Putting one more scary looking bug on my list of those not to kill...fauna is i guess is used in the sense of soil fauna which makes up all these springtails, silverfish and mites and so on. they graze on fungi and they digest fungi and free plant available nutrients. so not a bad guy for me, i’m perfectly ok with having them and not seeing any kind of damage to plants here.
also it wouldn’t be terrible if they were to eat myco and stuff either unless they were in very extremely high numbers which they are not in my soil, they wouldn’t do much damage to established webs of myco. afterall myco is alive too and those microbes also, so they repopulate and these guys eating them actually releases the nutrients stored in them. just another way of making stuff available to plants in my eyes.
that seems to make sense. Putting one more scary looking bug on my list of those not to kill...
I love em but for some reason I always get them on my hands and I always have a bite lol always just one or two bites where one is most peeps don’t lol but they taste me