Chronic333
Member
Im gonna get the 60x out later & have a look, but im pretty sure those are whats in my soil, the front legs are more pronounced than the rear, whitish, yellowish orangish colour.I am somewhat convinced that mine are Hypoaspis Miles. They are predatory soil mites, sometimes white, sometimes orange. They are an awesome cleanup crew and I make a special effort to keep them around. The very rarely crawl on the leaves and have never harmed the leaves. In summer, fungus gnats invariably find their way inside and the soil mites give their larvae a hard time. The soil mites 100% eliminated the springtails that I once had.
From the picture you posted it is difficult to be certain if yours are Hypoaspis as well. I suspect mine came from a bag of Foxfarm Ocean Forest but I'm not 100% certain because I had a bag of Pro Mix that was outside in the rain, so that may have been the vector. Where did your soil come from?
Have a look: http://store.evergreengrowers.com/prostores/servlet/Detail?no=1
Pics
My medium is Canna Bio-Terra, think it came with fungus gnats in it as ive had some gnats since day 1, but i grow in a garden so any bugs couldve easily come in through the door/windows with a breeze if they wanted to get in... i did leave my bag of soil outside for a few weeks until i transplanted so it was slightly exposed (taped up in a cardboard box in a shed)
Pretty cool if some people pay for these & i gotem for free, i wont get over exicted, im gonna get the 60x out before cracking the champagne