Mites...but not spider mites?

Greetings,

I went in to my grow tent last night to do my daily inspection and prepare to feed when I noticed a small branch that I had clipped off and missed a couple days ago was lying on the floor. I picked it up to dispose of it and noticed a large amount of tiny black bugs all over the stem. Upon magnified inspection, they appeared to be shaped like spider mites, but were much larger, visible without magnification and black or black/green in color. After disposing of the branch, I inspected my grow tent and noticed a large amount of these mites running around on the floor and congregating in the corners. They are large enough that I could see them moving from across the room. I vacuumed them up as best I could, but they were coming out of nowhere and would show back up a few minutes later. They walk pretty fast. I noticed them on the rims of my pots and some in the soil, I vacuumed them up as best I could as well. I did not notice any on the plants themselves though, nor any tell tale signs of mites on the leaves. I fed as planned, flooded out the floor, noticed many more of them in the water and shop vac'd them all up. I am planning to hit the girls with neem oil tonight and will keep a close eye on them.

Can anybody tell me what type of bugs these might be? I have also been having a slight problem with little black flies, the type that you often see around house plants. They are starting to get stuck on the leaves. I put a Hot Shot Pest Strip in there about a month ago and it would appear it's not working. Any suggestions on how to deal with these pests is welcome. I am 4 weeks into flower BTW.

Thanks for your time.

Managed to get some decent pics of the buggers today. Aphids maybe?

[attachment=o278918][attachment=o278919]

Them look like ticks....but I don't know....

Got some duct tape??? Place some on small sheets of cardboard with the sticky side up and they should stick if they crawl over.... Sounds good in theory, right???....

Make conditions unbearable for them and they will leave....

Have fun:thumbsup:....

CGI::::::

After some research online I'm pretty sure they're aphids. On my way to Lowe's to get some WMD's! lol

Might be too late now, but just get "Sevin" and spray it in corners and such. It will kill the plant if it gets on it. This should be a monthly or every other month chore to prevent infestations.

Not sure how far along the plants are, but Neem should be stopped in the last month of flower at the latest.

Thanks for the reply. I'm 4 weeks into flower, so I have around a month or so to go on them. I didn't really find anything at Lowe's that I thought was suitable, so I decided to neem them down and literally just got done nuking the whole tent. Gonna hit my local grow shop today and see what they have/recommend. Saw very few bugs just now and still none on the plants themselves, so hopefully I caught it in time.

They are ROOT APHIDS. Does anybody have a solution to get rid of them? I see some people just scrap their grow and start over. I have only 3-4 weeks at the most to go, so some chemical solutions are not going to work. HELP!

I can tell you how to prevent them.
But once infested, that late in the game, there is little hope.
Hadda scrap my grow, scrub every surface, dump my coco, and start fresh.

Now, I keep the flyers from laying eggs with dryer strips on the soil surface and treat seedlings with Imid. to kill the sap-sucking spawn.

If you do find a remedy, please post it.

Aloha,
Weezard

I'm really at a loss as to how I even got them in the first place. I treat my grow room like a clean room, this is not my first grow and I never had them before this. I change clothes before I go in, have a special pair of shoes that I wear, wash hands, keep it clean, etc. I was reading several complaints on some other msg boards from people saying Happy Frog soil (the type I'm using) has been known to have root aphids in it and it's been recommended not to use it because of it. Both customers and retailers were saying this.

Went to my local grow shop and they're the ones who helped me positively identify the bastards. They recommended SNS-203 and I bought it, although I've read mixed reviews on it. I literally have 3.5wks left of flower and only 1 of my plants looks to be in somewhat bad shape. Even if the SNS won't eradicate them, I'm hoping it will at least keep them at bay long enough for my girls to finish and then I can sterilize the place. It would be a shame to chop them now. Gonna try a soil drench tomorrow and see what happens. :(

BTW...the ones I've been catching running or flying around, I've been spraying them with 91% rubbing alcohol. Kills them instantly.

OK kids...so I went back to my local grow shop today to get a larger quantity (1gal and EXPENSIVE, but I figured worth it in the long run) of the SNS-203 and there was a different girl working. We discussed the SNS-203 and how I had read mixed reviews on it. She seemed a little more keen about root aphids than the other girls were (grower herself) and told me to follow her to the pest control section. She pulled out a bottle of 30% H2O2 and said to use it instead (MUCH more economical too). I was a bit confused, but it made sense after she explained it to me. Basically it will eat the buggers & disease, and save what's left of the roots. She suggested using it regularly. I don't expect to fully eradicate these things, but I would like to at least knock the shit out of them long enough to finish my crop, which should be in 3-4wks. I did about 5ml per gal (3ml is suggested) and soaked them until about 10-20% run off. I also have been spraying rubbing alcohol on all the flyers, rims/tops of pots and on ANYTHING moving around my tent, this kills them INSTANTLY. I made up a second, extremely strong batch of H2O2 water and am flooding my whole tent floor as to kill anything that may be lurking under the pots, edges, whatever.

She said root aphids weren't a problem here in Seattle and other states until about a year or so ago when they were spread here from contaminated plants from Cali.

LADYBUGS FTW. You can order them via mail from almost any hydroponic grow store online. Ladybugs love aphids more than anything! Totally safe and natural way to control them too. I wouldn't want alcohol anywhere near my precious trichomes until i'm making rick simpson oil! Oh yeah lady bugs are pretty cheap too!

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Originally Posted by benaynay

LADYBUGS FTW. You can order them via mail from almost any hydroponic grow store online. Ladybugs love aphids more than anything! Totally safe and natural way to control them too. I wouldn't want alcohol anywhere near my precious trichomes until i'm making rick simpson oil! Oh yeah lady bugs are pretty cheap too!

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Ladybugs larvae do eat winged, and ant-carried aphids.

However, that's not what he has.

Root aphids are just what it sounds like.
The adults are small flies that do no damage.
It's when they lay eggs in the soil that things go downhill.

The hatch then proceeds to suck all the sap out of a plants roots.
Ladybugs never even get a shot at them.

Killing the ones you can see, with whatever, is just spinning your wheels, and annoying your plants.

The most effective control is Bayer with Imid.
The Imid is a systemic, (poisons the sap), which poisons the suckers.
Never use it in , or close to, flowering, or it could poison you!

That, is why I did a full "reboot" on my perpetual garden.
There was no safe way to save them.
And now, I prevent random flyers from ever laying eggs with a soil shield.
So, it's not an issue.

"I wouldn't want alcohol anywhere near my precious trichomes until i'm making rick simpson oil!"

Amen to that!

Best of luck with this.

The H2O2 treatment is the safest, but here's a tip.
Put a strip of masking tape around the inside of the pot rim and around the stem before you apply the h2o2.
Smear it with Tanglefoot, or Vaseline.
It catches the runners
Or else they jus' run up the stem and chill for a while, yah?

Weezard

use dollar store flytape rolls bug love them and love to get stuck on them also specially spider myths. I posted a comment in a similar thread
http://boards.cannabis.com/plant-pro...der-mites.html

And also the thing about bugs and deseases it's always about poor airflow around the plants and on the plants ex: over crowed grow room with no space between plants. One thing bugs and mold hate is wind. so make sure the bottom of the plants are well ventilated. Usually shit starts from the ground up. And humidity control is very important ,mold and bacteria thrive in enclosed humid badly vented spaces, if your using hydroponics high humidity will become an issue fast . If your not growing mushrooms, you should avoid having that in your grow room. A good example of what happens when you dont respect that rule is included in . Volume 01. 15 Pounds In 80 Days .

I love how people just comment on shit without READING and you just make yourself look ignorant when you make comments that don't pertain to my issue. SMH

Anyways...since my H2O2 treatment I have seen a significant drop in bugs and activity. I've seen more flyers than crawlers over the past 2 days, but only a handful in total. Nothing attempted to "run away" from anything or up my plants. Doesn't really make sense since I was watering from the top down. It would appear I put a serious dent in them, but I am keeping a very close eye on them.

I have multiple fans going at the tops and bottoms. Airflow is not an issue.

You could littly foliar spray your plants with seaweed extracts. Bugs hate it ,it might keep them of the plants and help your plants too. i know your 4 weeks into flower but what do you have to loose...

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Originally Posted by CanGroIt

Them look like ticks....but I don't know....

Got some duct tape??? Place some on small sheets of cardboard with the sticky side up and they should stick if they crawl over.... Sounds good in theory, right???....

Make conditions unbearable for them and they will leave....

Have fun:thumbsup:....

CGI::::::

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yeah! my first thought exactly. in arizona they run rampant unless you treat your areas routinely.

ive had some pretty good success using pyrethrum, a really good fogger to kill off some of these pests