Can anyone tell me what these little buggers are?

[Vinny133]

I top dressed my girls with some worms casting. I then placed some sticky traps in the pot after top dressing as a preventative measure as I have noticed a couple of gnats recently. The next day, I noticed what looked like a fine dust accumulating on the sticky traps. I then broke out the microscope and took a pic and to my surprise, they are some type of bug. There is a gnat stuck there as well which helps define how tiny they are. Anyone know if these are good or bad bugs? I think they may have come from the castings as they weren’t there before.

Thanks,
Vin

 

[Buds Buddy]

kind of looks like small hornworms. pretty hard to really see them to be sure.

 

[Sueet]

They look like black springtails to me, and those are good guys imo.

 

[Rolling Green]

As Sueet said, either Springtails or Proturan, both are beneficial to the soil.

 

[Vinny133]

kind of looks like small hornworms. pretty hard to really see them to be sure.

Hook worms are much bigger.

kind of looks like small hornworms. pretty hard to really see them to be sure.

I don’t think they’re hornworms. These are microscopic, 500x in the original pic. from what I can see, hornworms are considerably larger. As you can see in this picture, to the naked eye it looks like just fine dust particles.

 

[OldMedUser]

Hook worms are much bigger.

I don’t think they’re hornworms. These are microscopic, 500x in the original pic. from what I can see, hornworms are considerably larger. As you can see in this picture, to the naked eye it looks like just fine dust particles.

Those have got to be springtails to get all over the trap like that with no wings. I had white ones like that in the pots and there was easily a couple hundred in each teaspoon worth of soil. The plants were doing the shits too so I tried Gnatrol on them and they seemed to go away. Think I might have fungus gnats moving in so will have to get out the gnatrol again soon enough.

 

[Vinny133]

Those have got to be springtails to get all over the trap like that with no wings. I had white ones like that in the pots and there was easily a couple hundred in each teaspoon worth of soil. The plants were doing the shits too so I tried Gnatrol on them and they seemed to go away. Think I might have fungus gnats moving in so will have to get out the gnatrol again soon enough.

Where do sprintails come from?

 

[CaptainLucky]

Those have got to be springtails to get all over the trap like that with no wings. I had white ones like that in the pots and there was easily a couple hundred in each teaspoon worth of soil. The plants were doing the shits too so I tried Gnatrol on them and they seemed to go away. Think I might have fungus gnats moving in so will have to get out the gnatrol again soon enough.

Never heard of Gnatol before thanks for the tip.

 

[SmokingWings]

Where do sprintails come from?

Mr and Mrs Springtail decide to raise a family. Next thing we know there are Springtail all over the neighborhood. Just joking around.

I do not notice Springtails in my soil but I am not looking for them. Even if I saw some it would just be a sign that my soil mix is still healthy with plenty of organic material left.

They are part of the natural cycle when using a lot of organic materials in a soil grow. There will be more of them when the soil and especially the soil surface is kept moist. Let the top of the soil dry out a bit more and they will be more likely to stay down deeper and do their job there like they are supposed to.

Trying to kill them all off is not the best solution.

 

[cbdhemp808]

@Vinny133, how are your plants doing?