White Mites in fresh FF Soil

[trip]

WTH?!!? I have several plants in my garden, and havent had much of any problems (little fungus gnat problem that quickly went away thanks to the info on this site!!!), until two days ago when I purchased 2 bags of FFOF soil. I mixed in some additional perlite out of a fresh bag, and this morning when I was checking on my girls, I noticed something moving on top of the soil.

I picked up a few with the tweezers, stuck them to some tape, and looked at them through the microscope.

They are some form of a mite... not sure that they are spidermites though. They are white, not red, and they almost look like a predator mite, but i cant tell. When i look at spider mites online, their legs look like they are arrainged with 4 facing straight forwards, and 4 straight back.

These white guys have legs that are more radial, meaning they are more equidistance around the body. But, then I saw a picture of a spider mite in the nymph stage, and the color looked right... still a little different on the legs.

Are these white dudes spider mites, or are they good mites?

I will try to get a picture of them posted, but i am not sure I will be able to take a pic through the microscope.

Thank you in advance for any help.

trip.

 

[trip]

Here are some pics... they are more amber colored than the picture shows, camera made them seem redder than they are IRL. Same color of amber as trics that are ready.

again, any help in ID'ing these little Fox Farm stowaways would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Trip.

 

[trip]

Again, the main thing that I notice in all of the spidermite pictures versus these guys is the location/layout of their legs.

All the pictures of spidermites that I have seen have shown the legs out the front and rear (like a black widow spider sitting on a web) rather than the legs coming out the side like these guys.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me that these arent freaking spidermites.

Brand new soil, spent $50 and sweated my ass off mixing this stuff, and now I have these bitches involved. <sigh>

Im gonna go smoke a bowl and try to not have nightmares of bugs.

 

[Weed420]

They look like spider mites to me. Add some neem oil to the soil. Won't hurt your plants and should take care of them.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I would send a polite email to FoxFarm informing them about what you discovered in their soil.

You never know, they might try to make up for it in some way - or they might not. But in any event, if your two are not the only bags from that run that have bugs in them, maybe they can do something about it before the rest of that lot is sold to people.

The neem oil is a good idea. Another is to pick up a diatomaceous earth product and sprinkle some on top of the soil mix in each of your pots (won't hurt the plants, you, or any animals larger than an insect). Soft-bodied insects(sic) that crawl across a soil-surface that has been dusted with DE will quickly die.

 

[trip]

so, I watered the soil with neem and went through each plant individually with tweezers and picked them off as i saw them.

I must have picked off 50 or so of the mites, and along the way... guess what I ran in to?

Freaking fungus gnat larvae. Now I know where they came from last time, because I had used FFOF soil then as well. Had NO BUGS AT FREAKING ALL, and then BAM! Fungus gnats.

Now, after I ridded my room of the fungus gnats, now I have freaking spider mites AND fungus gnats again.

Wow. So I just wasted $50 on my soil... going to throw all of it away, or maybe take it back to the store and let them go through it. And also have now had to spend more money on D.E., Neem, B.T.I. (fungus gnats), sticky traps (yay, more shit to stick to me every time i move... nothing like a sticky trap across your freaking face to make your day fun). Not to mention that I am going to have to REBUY more soil.

I want to say a bunch of things right now, but I will refrain. I understand that lots of people masturbate over FF products, but after having used their entire nute line-up and their soil...

MEH.

Seriously. Its like freaking amateur hour. I will keep using the FF Big Bloom, as that seems pretty decent, but the Grow Big, Tiger Bloom and all of the Ocean Forest soil is going into the garbage in the morning.

Im pissed, Im tired, my eyes are going crosseyed from looking for TINY FREAKING BUGS, and my ass is numb for sitting on a roll-around stool for the last 6 straight hours.

On a happier note, the neem did seem to knock them silly. The sierra spray stuff I am going to go get if I see them go buck-ass wild. That stuff is like $55 a quart here but if it does the job, ill pay it for sure.

Thanks for everyone who chimed in. Sorry if I bashed Fox Farms too hard, but DAMN MAN!!! My garden is clean and dialed in, and I am a freak about cleanliness and sterilization. So, to have the bugs come in on the soil... WTF can I do about that? I cant bake that crap in the oven... my wife would cut off my last nut. So then what? Just deal with bugs?

 

[TorturedSoul]

Contact Foxfarm.
Contact the store.
Take it back.

Flea bomb.

Go hydro (lol).

 

[lil stinker 420]

i agrea with torturedsoul, but this is the first neg. thing ive heard about ffof,thats what i use to.

 

[SnowBender]

Must be tough to keep up with demands... seems like the amount of FF trucks on 101 easily doubles every year.
-Dirt getting exported with Humboldt borg along for the ride...what a nasty thought. I sure hope this is not the case or at least very isolated.

++vibes++ to the OP

 

[trip]

Ok, so it has been a week, I have neemed twice, and threw in some B.T.I. for the fungus gnats, and I went through each plant, one by one.

What I noticed is that the neem oil most definately slows them down, making it easier to pick them off, but it really is not doing anything to the population. They are still there in the soil.

So far... 7 days later, they still have made no real attempt to go up into my plants and do all the damage that spider mites are known for. They are still the same amber color with no red or red spots. So, I am still not sold on the fact that they are spider mites in the first place. As far as I can tell, the mites aren't doing any damage that I can see.

Now, the fucking fungus gnat larvae... that is a different story. Those MF'ers were everywhere... I think I just pulled out 40 or 50 of the larvae. Watered the plants down with B.T.I., and am now going to let them dry out as much as I can get them to.

So... what I really want is some good advice on what else I should use instead of FFOF for my growing medium until I have the $$$ to spend on my hydro get-up. Can someone link me to a good FAQ on coco-noir growing? I know that there are some special things that you have to do in order to grow in noir, and I dont want to F it up.

Thanks in advance,

Trip.

 

[lil stinker 420]

there are alot of hydro shops that sell the coco coir blocks.one of the small blocks if you mix, it will mix with about a 1.5 sq ft. bag of soil.if your just useing coco a small block will fill a 5 gal bucket almost.if you have alot to plant get the big blocks there cheaper. also make sure there ph balanced im not sure if they all are. what i used is sunleaves brand and had no problems.you may be able to order direct from sunleaves. g.l. with your plants friend

 

[SciFi]

Dude.. Bake your soil before you use it. I didn't with my first grow, and I regretted it.

 

[trip]

OK... more info cometh...

I posted about this on 6/27, I had transplanted my plants on 6/26 (when the soil was purchased and used), and it is currently 7/10... so, 14 days or so from my transplant.

So far, the mites have remained in the soil. I neemed them, didnt seem to bother them much, but they havent gone up the plants, they havent turned red, and they dont have two spots like spider mites should. No webs, nothing.

But, I did notice that I had a metric-fuck-ton of fungus gnat larvae in the soil too. So, I added B.T.I. over 3 seperate waterings, and kept inspecting the plants.

The fungus gnat larvae have diminished SIGNIFIGANTLY, but the mites ARE STILL THERE.

So, today, after posting another thread about my other issue with my plants in the flowering room having leaves that are discoloring and turning necrotic, I started doing some more research on these freaking mites.

I went to wikipedia and put 'soil mites' into the search bar. The second link was for an insect called 'Hypoaspis miles'. I went to its wiki page, and it had a description of a small mite that lives in the top 1/2" of the soil and is a natural preadator of the fungus gnat pupae

There isnt a picture on the wiki page, but there was a link to another website. Hypoaspis Miles



We have a winner.

THAT.... ladies and gentlemen... is EXACTLY what is cruzing around in my soil.



I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much happier at the moment, even if I do have a mold/fungus/nute deficency problem in my other room.

Thank you to everyone that assisted me in trying to ID these little fuckers. It appears that they are a beneficary (sp?) insect, and you may want to add 'Hypoaspis Miles' to the list of insects.

WHEW!!! No spider mites, boooooyah.

However, on a sad note... I fucking tossed like $50 of apparently good soil... lolz.

I would make an apology to Fox Farms, but because there are freaking fungus gnats in my soil, I would assume that they added the mites in there to combat them. Just speculating. If that is the case, then they knowingly sold tainted soil? I digress. I dont really care at the moment, because I think I am spider-mite free.

 

[SciFi]

Umm. No dude. You had gnats in the soil.. the mites showed up for the party cause there was food. ALOT of indoor soil growers literally bake the soil in the oven, to kill all seeds, and insects in it.

 

[trip]

Umm. No dude. You had gnats in the soil.. the mites showed up for the party cause there was food. ALOT of indoor soil growers literally bake the soil in the oven, to kill all seeds, and insects in it.

Umm. Really, dude? Maybe some, but not Fox Farms.

FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company

Are your soils sterilized?

No, we don’t sterilize our soils because that would kill the very beneficial microbes which are critical in making nutrients available to plants. Your soil should be alive, not sterile! Our mixes contain beneficial fungi and micro-organisms that help plants become more disease resistant and grow healthy root systems. FoxFarm soils and fertilizers are specially formulated to build massive microbe populations.

Also, reading is fundamental... meaning, your response leads me to believe you did not bother to read all of my posts, and the information contained within.

Again, I understand the Fox Farm Fanboi phenomenon, I do, but the evidence doesnt lie. There are fungus gnats in the soil, and there is some form of a mite in there. IT CAME IN THE SOIL. The only plants with the mites were the newly potted transplants that used the new FFOF soil that I purchased THAT DAY.

Fox Farms does not sterilize their soil, and I would suspect they added what I am now sure are predator mites to combat a fungus gnat problem. If this is the case, it seems to be working, as I have not seen any fungus gnat larvae in the past few days, and no fungus gnat adults at all.

I am just hoping that they are infact beneficial insects, and that they remain in the soil doing their job. I have not seen one of them on the plant doing anything suspicious, and I have stated that clearly. I didnt think they were spider mites from the beginning, as they did not look like spider mites, but they are DEFINATELY some form of a mite.

And again, it is in the FFOF soil, as I checked my plants in flower (had no mites or fungus gnats), checked my older plants in veg (had no mites or fungus gnats), checked my recently transplanted clones from the last batch of soil (had no mites or fungus gnats)... then I checked the clones I JUST transplanted with the new FFOF soil (had mites and fungus gnats), and I checked the soil container that was washed and sterilized before mixing the soil (had mites and fungus gnats).

So, using resonable deduction, either the mites and fungus gnats were in the perlite (im going to go with unlikely) or they were in the Fox Farms soil... which is the only logical conclusion, as you do not get mites and gnat larvae that advanced in life in a matter of minutes.

Also, I have no intentions of baking all the soil that I need. That is asinine. It would take forever, it kills all the beneficial bacteria and fungi, and would smell like a whores ass on a hot day. Thanks, but I feel that if im paying 20 bucks for a bag of premium dirt, it shouldnt be filled with creepy-crawlies.

 

[SciFi]

First of all.. I read about 60 hours a week, in my profession. Thanks for the educational tip, and I wasn't inferring any sort of ignorance on your part, so I'd like it if you didn't, on mine as well. I'm no FFarm fan boi. I don't use it, and could care less. I was offering advice, to a common soil problem.. One which I encountered on my very first soil container grow, and thought to offer advice.

Your posts sounded to me like you were suggesting FF put the mites in there to deal with the gnats.

I highly doubt they would do that. Mites usually show up to the party when there is food and opportunity, like spiders do.

Regardless of the fungus in the dirt, I still wouldn't use it if I didn't sterilize it. Likely one or both of them populated the bag during transport or at the store. If anything I'd ask the retailer to inspect other bags in that lot, and demand a refund, if he found more.

I was simply stating that many, many FAQs, and other books/websites floating around, wrote by experts simply state, BAKE YOUR DIRT OR YOU'LL REGRET IT and I ignored it for my first soil grow, and I regretted it.

Baking sterilizes any stray seeds, and any stray bugs that could have crawled in there during transport, if it was a premium brand, or been in there from the word go, in some cheap shit from Walmart.

Really, I'm sorry you got a bunkus bag of expensive dirt, and I wasn't trying to piss in your cheerios. I'm glad you don't have mites, I really did from some cheap dirt along with stray plants, and they were a c*nt to deal with.

 

[Brimstone]

Just bought a bag of FFOF and it is crawling with predatory H.Mites..so either Fox is adding them to control a problem on their end or my local grow store did.

I went to knock them down cause i dont like seeing them even though they are harmless and boy oh boy , resilient to sulphur , neem , pyrethrin , and spinosad.

now im wondering if i should just leave them , they crawl around frantically looking for prey...

 

[DanDanBinks]

think you might have fungus mites from gnats. and that could happen if your growing out door or some how had one fly indoors. they are attracted to decaying plant matter. and lay eggs in the soil. the Gnats are harmless to the plan but the larva live and feed off the plant roots that are close to the surface as deep as 2 inches.

here is a link for taking care of them. hope this helps How to Kill Fungus Gnats in Houseplants with Dish Soap | Home Guides | SF Gate