Some little annoyances

[RosieC]

Could they be springtails?

These tiny tiny things move fast when you water, usually I see them on surface of the water when I dunk a pot, skitting over the surface.

If so they are harmless and I have them in most orchids/houseplants. However they are in bigger numbers in decaying medium so excessive number of them can be a sign to change the medium. I got rid of them before I realised they were harmless by soaking the pot on soapy water. Now I tend to just leave them and repot before they get too numerous.

They feed on organisms in decaying medium. I know my compost heap has, probably millions of them, riddled throughout it.

[Jeff9]

They are not springtails.
They are much smaller, and less long, they appear like mites.

They only crawl the surface and dont move fast when you water, you can barely even see them.
I am wondering what the hell these things are.

Whatever they are, they are tough as hell, i caught one of em today and put it in a bleach solution for 2 hours and after i took it out it was still alive.

Anyway i have taken serious countermeasures, the first results look promising, two s/h pots were kept submerged in a bleach solution for 12 hours. The media is absolutely clean, like the leca was new, no trace of algae or moss, or these bugs, they might come back, but it looks promising.

I have checked all my mounts (all epiweb) and i cant seem to detect anything, luckily! But i will keep monitoring.
I think they were not able to reach it, or they dont like light airy places. Since they all dwell in the media of the pots, which are darker and wet.

I emptied my entire tank today and placed my mounts in a safe location.
The rest was all submerged in strong bleach solutions and i will flush it thoroughly.

I will sterilize my tank with bleach and i am taking a hand pressure steamer to clean everything nicely.

Hopefully this will work.

[Jeff9]

Oh yeah, and working with bleach all day isnt good for your health.

and it's not good for your appetite either

[RosieC]

Hope you can get them under control Jeff... and try not to breat too much of that bleach

[rvnhawk]

I don't know about the flying insects, but I wanted to comment about the little snail and jelly like substance.

I also keep tropical fish and snails. That one little snail you saw may actually be numerous snails. They are great at hiding. And little snails can be old enough to reproduce. If the jelly like substance was like that agar - it likely was snail eggs. So that might be the problem with the aerial roots. But I don't know enough about orchids to know that for sure. Just talking about my experience with planted aquariums and snails.

[Jeff9]

Could be, but i highly doubt it, i havent seen a snail in months and i check it very very well.

Anyway, i think i contained it. I took everything out and completely sterilized the inside of my tank.
Every plant was thoroughly checked and cleaned, all the potted plants were unpotted and soaked in bleach solution for several hours before being reintroduced to the tank.

Safety precautions.

I doubt the jelly is snail eggs, i do wonder WHAT it is.
One small pot still has it, its laelia reginae, small brazilian laelia in a pot filled with ceramic and covered with a layer of living sphagnum and madagascar moss at the top.

I noticed a thin film, jelly like layer covering the ceramic at the surface.
Could it be some sort of algae or something secreted by the moss?

[Jeff9]

So annoying, i found one plant today that had these annoying bugs crawling all over them again, tons of em.

It seems the eggs survived and hatched in it. I immediately isolated it and cleaned it up.

The absolute strange thing is tough, i soaked every of the plants in 12 hrs + bleach solution, then another 12 + hrs in water. and completely refreshed the medium again. How can they survive this?

Also, is there a slight possibility these things eggs are in a new sphagnum pack i got recently and have been using? Could it be they are hatching under the optimal conditions from the sphag?

Thoughts?