Is this a mite?

tamjam69

tamjam69

Well-Known Member
hey guys im thinking i may have a bit of bother from some tiny little pests. i have searched all my plants and cannot find any of these on the plants them selves but in the soil on one of the smaller plants i have spotted a few of these, i could count about ten and i squatted them all

what is it? as i read that spider mite only live on the leaves. im thinking its a mite of some sort,

im worried, do i need to? or are these safe? :?
 

Attachments

Christiandome

Christiandome

Member
TamJam69
Well it does indeed look like the Red Spider Mite. Yes they can infest the Soil through riding in/on the lower stem going into the soil. If you never believed anything believe this" If you've got mites",- harmless as they may seem at the moment, be quick and efficient on getting rid of them and keeping them at bay. For as the Sun raises tomorrow, they will grow and infest so damn fast taking your crop right under you. The only efficient way we've ever been able to get rid of them" at least temporaily" is the get a mid-sized spray bottle and add three small drops of Ivory dishSoap and then fill with water. With all lights turned off, but a small light to see with, Shake gently, then spray the living daylights out of them, especially under the leaves and be sure to get the whole plant. Then let the plants dry for a couple hours, before turning back on the lights. This method will kill about 90% or so of the mites. And when bad , you will have to do this probaly every week or so.
I know of no other effective way of totally eliminating mites without hurting the plant. Don't be tempted to using any more dishsoap then 3 or 4 drops as you may temperaly get rid of all mites you can see with you eyes, but the plants and or buds may dry out if you use anymore, and the mites will be back ,just a day or two later. As it is, if you turn your lights on too soon, you could end up with a few curls up leaves.
Neem oil, Sprays, Lady bugs, etc.... have thier place (but mainly are waste of time and money). However, you can waste either on whatever tickles your fancy. Some people just need to try something else ???.... or just don't believe anybody for anything, and on the whole, thats not always bad advice.
Wish you well on your grow !!
 
stumps

stumps

Well-Known Member
I don't know about the ivery but neem has worked well for me. spray every three days for two weeks. I let them go to far my last grow and nearley killed my grow. I think it took them about a week unchecked to mess things up. Eggs hatch every three days kill them before they can lay more eggs. it's very hard to get rid of the little bastards.
 
maturesmoker

maturesmoker

Active Member
Hi Tamjam,

Before you panic over this can you put some scale on that thing? if its big enough for you to see moving on the soil then I doubt its actually a mite, plus as you say your plants are clean, thats a good sign. As you know mate I have a lot of experience with battling mites and its no fun but you need to look for tiny 'dots' on the underside of the leaf, with the naked eye that's as much as you can make out so if its bigger than that its not spider mite. I agree that pic does look something like a mite (see pic below of true red spider mite) but I don't see the scaly back etc of a mite! Signs of mite feeding are tiny white marks on the upper surface of leafs. So first lets confirm that what you have ARe indeed spider mites then we can talk about treatment. The soapy water treatment is well known and can be worth doing, good tip. Neem is a good preventative but once they colonise a plant its almost impossible to cover every bit of plant to destroy them. Some swear by home made mixtures of soaps, oils (coriander oil is one that I've been using) vinegars and some sort of 'fizzing' agent like bicarb of soda, but the bottom line is catch them early and you have a fighting chance of beating them. But I'll stick my neck out here based on that picture and say that's NOT a spider mite, I may be proven wrong when we see the true scale of the thing, but at the moment I'll go with small spiders and even so you will need to eradicate them but it should be much easier.

Take a another close up mate and let us know the size please?

This is the red spider mite but there is also a darker brown spider mite, I've had both over the years!!!!

 
tamjam69

tamjam69

Well-Known Member
wow thanks for the replys +rep to you all :-P ( thats if it will let me rep you MS!! ) i have searched and searched all the plants and i cannot find any on the actual plants, its only on the two small snowwhites that have a few in the soil when i remove the pot ( they are in tiny pots so its easy ) and there is less then there was yesterday :-P.

after looking at loads of pics on the web and the last 2 hours on google im thinking that they are a predatory type of mite and not spider mite :-P

first pic is of mine and is the best i can do and one of it next to a 9v battery then the rest of them show the predatory mite eating spider mites and im pretty sure that is what i have. the last four pics are of the net

what do you guys think?
 

Attachments

GrizzlyAdams

GrizzlyAdams

Well-Known Member
I will positively ID that as a spider mite.

If you have 10 female spider mites on your plant and all their eggs hatch and grow up, you will have fifty six thousand two hundred and fifty spider mites on June 19th living in your plant. Math is fun! Every spider mite female lays approximately 100 eggs every 5 days, 75% of them are female, and these bugs only gotta get busy once to lay eggs forever.

Theres some strong info in this thread, page through pics until you come upon spider mites, its alphabetized. Bleaching grow rooms can be a pain in the ass but its supposedly a way to stop re-infestation

https://www.rollitup.org/bugs/335046-grizzlys-guide-pulverizing-pests.html

You are going to need to do 3 full rounds of spraying to ensure they're dead. Once to kill adults, once to kill the hatched eggs, and again to catch stragglers. Neem oil is the most effective spray against spider mites, but make sure you use a spreader sticker (i.e. teaspoon of dishsoap per gallon of water). Apply sprays every 5-10 days apart, the eggs take that identical timeframe to hatch.

Good luck duder
-Grizz
 
tamjam69

tamjam69

Well-Known Member
thanks again guys your help is very much appreciated, i have searched and searched the plants again only to see them in the soil, on all of the pots now ( i didnt check the others before ).

that azatrol looks a tad bit on the pricey side for me to purchase this week, apart from that what do you guys suggest? and how do i treat them best when they are in the soil?

i have removed all the pins that were lst'ing two of them, so that if these do become a problem i will have a bit of access to the bottom of the plants.

thanks again
 
tamjam69

tamjam69

Well-Known Member
shrigpiece said:
KILL! little assholes. i use blockout, its works.
Click to expand...
cheers shrig, i have bought this stuff and sprayed all the plants just incase, better safe then sorry. saw someone using it on another forum google guided me to it


http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=10777768&fh_view_size=10&fh_eds=%3f&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB%2fcategories%3C{9372012}%2fcategories%3C{9372020}%2fcategories%3C{9372098}%2fspecificationsProductType%3dinsect___slug_control&fh_refview=lister&ts=1276199961139&isSearch=false
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top