Absolute cure for spider mite infestation?

I have had a spider mite infestation problem for over a month now and have tried various methods. All of my plants have been in flower during the infestation.
These are the methods I have tried and no success so far.

Neem oil, spraying on all leaves front and back once a week or so till I ran out. No luck. Actually the least effective method I have used.

SNS 217 spray I ordered online comes in a 4 ounce spray bottle. Has a distinct smell and ran out after spraying the 3rd plant so I had to add water to it. Seems like it left a nice oil film on the leaves but did absolutely nothing for my infestation.

Alcohol/water spray. Mixed a spray bottle with 50/50 rubbing alcohol and water and sprayed the entire plant buds and all. This seems to kill the mites temporarily but after a day or 2 the mites begin their construction work again, and I don't feel safe spraying my babies with alcohol every other day.

Ladybugs. This might have been the worst mistake of all to kill the mites. They have polluted my grow room with dead bodies everywhere and do absolutely nothing to kill the mites. All they do is walk around looking for mold and end up drowning in my watering runoff or the hps cool tubes and various ladybugs are now walking around my home looking for light sources and whatnot.

When my current plants are done with harvest, in a week or two im gonna fully sanitize my grow room, but I know my vegging clones are semi infested so I will have to combat that problem when it comes to that.

Basically I want some professional growers who face this problem frequently and have come to a real solution to ridding of these fuckers. I have heard a lot about the hot shot no pest strips but I hear they are toxic, since my grow room is my closet in my bedroom and I have dogs, I dont want to risk the toxicity.

Please don't mention neem oil on here the shit doesn't work for an infestation only preventative measures. Also I was looking at spider mite predators, but wouldnt that defeat the purpose since their eggs and corpses will be on the leaves as well as the spider mites? I want nothing on my leaves and them to be green. It seems like all of my fan leaves will never be green they are all ate up from the mites =(

AVID or FLORIMITE work very well.. a new product called mighty wash, is only ionized water and its suppose to kill them on contact maybe try it on your finshing crop its totally safe.. avid and florimite should be applied before flowering.

I know you said pro help, but I too had spide mites and the alcohol mix worked well. Need to do it every couple of days to keep combating the newly hatched eggs. A rinse or spritz of water will help to clean off "dead" ones (even some live). The alcohol evaporates really fast, and i dont think you will have ill effects from using it. On my roses outside, i use "BAYER rose food" which has additives for spider mite treatment, and that eorks great on them. I dont know if it would be something you would want to try in flowering though. Maybe if spotted soon enough in veg, you could use it though. I mixed of some of the rose food after i felt the alcohol did its thing, and sprayed for an additional week (again, during veg as to flush out all the potential bad stuff). I havent seen a single issue in my room since doing this 4 weeks ago.

Higher concentration of neem oil and more applications, Sesame oil is toxic to mites and can be used as a mild spray, cinnamon-clove tea (i would never use this on flowering plants however but for the ones in veg its ok), Co2 concentrations of above 5k ppm is also toxic to mites, pyrethrum (some mites are actually immune so i dont bother using this one), sulfur burners (depending on how well you can control your environment in the closet), and of course predatory mites. An amazing product i would recommend is Azatrol. Its a completely organic insecticide that was designed for consumable plants. This stuff works on almost EVERYTHING Theres actually alot of other choices out there but i havnt personally tried them and i cant in good faith recommend something i havnt personally tried Happy growin'

TrichomeTrent said:

Higher concentration of neem oil and more applications, Sesame oil is toxic to mites and can be used as a mild spray, cinnamon-clove tea (i would never use this on flowering plants however but for the ones in veg its ok), Co2 concentrations of above 5k ppm is also toxic to mites, pyrethrum (some mites are actually immune so i dont bother using this one), sulfur burners (depending on how well you can control your environment in the closet), and of course predatory mites. An amazing product i would recommend is Azatrol. Its a completely organic insecticide that was designed for consumable plants. This stuff works on almost EVERYTHING Theres actually alot of other choices out there but i havnt personally tried them and i cant in good faith recommend something i havnt personally tried Happy growin'

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sulfur burners? co2? azatrol is a higher concentration of NEEM. they get immune to it super fast.

You're in a tough spot with so far into flower. CO2 saturation or physical dunking in a water bath is probably your safest bet. For mites, it works best to rotate three different action products over the course of every 4th day until the infestation is handled. That way they don't adapt to any one insecticide which is what they do when you just use one type. The 3-4 day pause interval is important in that you catch the recently hatched eggs that most insecticides do not act against.

rosecitypapa said:

You're in a tough spot with so far into flower. CO2 saturation or physical dunking in a water bath is probably your safest bet. For mites, it works best to rotate three different action products over the course of every 4th day until the infestation is handled. That way they don't adapt to any one insecticide which is what they do when you just use one type. The 3-4 day pause interval is important in that you catch the recently hatched eggs that most insecticides do not act against.

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You mean dunking in water after I chop the plant for harvest? I dont see how its possible to dunk a plant in water while its in a soil pot...

co2 is a myth. cost 40 bucks in refills and a dope scope to figure that out.

brooksaw said:

You mean dunking in water after I chop the plant for harvest? I dont see how its possible to dunk a plant in water while its in a soil pot...

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No, I would dunk it immediately. Wrap the pot in a large plastic bag and do it in the bathtub. To spider mites, hours are like days to us.

doniawon said:

co2 is a myth. cost 40 bucks in refills and a dope scope to figure that out.

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That would be news to me. Did you get the concentration to 10k ppm's?

did you use 100 percent cold pressed neem, 1-2 t spoons, 2 litres water, drop of dish washing liquid to emulsify........shake well.....spray pots , earth,stems leaves and grow area.............i use it and always does the job

rosecitypapa said:

No, I would dunk it immediately. Wrap the pot in a large plastic bag and do it in the bathtub. To spider mites, hours are like days to us.




That would be news to me. Did you get the concentration to 10k ppm's?

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yeah for hours.. didnt work tried twice, once at the recommended.. i think cannibis culture did the artical. then at twice that ppms and duration.. didnt work at all. nice bud rose city..

doniawon said:

sulfur burners? co2? azatrol is a higher concentration of NEEM. they get immune to it super fast.

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yes and yes. Also im aware that azatrol is technically neem. However after studying neem they actually found out exactly which proteins and chemicals were doing what. Thats why they use a neem extraction and not just straight neem oil. I have never seen anything become immunhe to azatrol and since starting to use it its been almost my ONLY control.

doniawon said:

co2 is a myth. cost 40 bucks in refills and a dope scope to figure that out.

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rosecitypapa said:

That would be news to me. Did you get the concentration to 10k ppm's?

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Basically this. If you are not breaking the 5k mark MINIMUM, then its not going to have any effect on the mites (5k ppm being akin to an 'L.D.50' to mites, i would recommend something closer to papa).

On a side note i forgot to mention humidity to OP. Spider mites THRIVE in dry conditions. If you bump your humidity up towards the higher end acceptable for flowering it wont kill or stop them but it will slow down their maturation rate making it easier to control and kill them off.

TrichomeTrent said:

yes and yes. Also im aware that azatrol is technically neem. However after studying neem they actually found out exactly which proteins and chemicals were doing what. Thats why they use a neem extraction and not just straight neem oil. I have never seen anything become immunhe to azatrol and since starting to use it its been almost my ONLY control.



Basically this. If you are not breaking the 5k mark MINIMUM, then its not going to have any effect on the mites (5k ppm being akin to an 'L.D.50' to mites, i would recommend something closer to papa).

On a side note i forgot to mention humidity to OP. Spider mites THRIVE in dry conditions. If you bump your humidity up towards the higher end acceptable for flowering it wont kill or stop them but it will slow down their maturation rate making it easier to control and kill them off.

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spidermites thrive in heat/ lower the temps.. and cold pressed einstein oil or azamax azatrol.. all neem all band aids. have you tested the co2 yet.. do you know anyone who has real information with pics and detailed info?? i would love to see it

I use Forbid by Bayer in veg and as long as you use neem oil once a week after you'll be fine and oh yeah I use forbid on the plant the first week of flower to insure no mites during flower and forbid stays in the plant for 1 month so your finished product is free of all poisons.

rosecitypapa said:

No, I would dunk it immediately. Wrap the pot in a large plastic bag and do it in the bathtub. To spider mites, hours are like days to us.

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seems like all of the dirt would just pour out. Could you please be more specific.

Seems like the dunking method wouldn't work anyways The eggs are stuck to the leaves and other mites are crawling around the outter edges of the pot and in the soil.

brooksaw said:

Seems like the dunking method wouldn't work anyways The eggs are stuck to the leaves and other mites are crawling around the outter edges of the pot and in the soil.

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it covers every surface of the plant that goes in the water/?? its great for clones and small plants in plugs or rw cubes.

If you shut down your room (Remove all plants and turn everything off) this is what I did when I had a bad spider mite problem.
Wear a respirator from your hardware store that is for paint fumes. Not the cheap paper ones! This is for short term exposure only! Get it done and get the fook out!
Three sprays from a garden sprayer of half and half bleach and water. The mist will be like tear gas on your eyes. Three sprays a few hours apart.
I got a small container of Malathion, this shit kills everything it seems. It is for diluted sprays...FOOK THAT, I put it into my propane yard fogger and fogged the shit out of my room. Since due to the number of pets I have, we also had a flea problem so I fogged the who damn house. Smoke detectors going off, fog rolling out of the soffits and roof vents. I fogged the hell out of everything.(Pets outside of course)
The shit stinks and the smell may take a day or two after you vent to leave.
Not a flea, spider mite, nat, or other bug was alive in the the place after that. I may of took a few years off the neighbors as they closed their windows when it was all rolling out.
Since it was not made to fog, it hangs a VERY LONG TIME so you need to vent and air out. Let it hang for an hour or two before venting.
If you do this, dump your fogger tank and clean it well. I left the remainder in and it melted the tank and ruined the fogger even though the stuff was in a plastic bottle.

LOL! What an ignorant way to kill the bastard mites. I could see myself overdoing the problem just like that. I like the end part about how the tank melted! HAHA!

Marky said:

LOL! What an ignorant way to kill the bastard mites. I could see myself overdoing the problem just like that. I like the end part about how the tank melted! HAHA!

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Maybe, but it worked. Five dogs and three cats we had a bad flea problem on top of the spider mites. You could see them jumping on you.
Overkill for others? Maybe, but it solved our bug problem 100%.