Multiple Pests

[silken]

I feel bad for you with the pests. It certainly is discouraging. I think good ole Malathion will do away with the spider mites and likely the fungus gnats in the soil too if other approaches don't work. I keep hearing about the mosquito dunks tho and that might help the fungus gnat problem. Keep the succulent well away from other plants and treat every 5 or 7 days to get the eggs etc. Warm and dry encourages spider might. They don't like high humidity and cooler, but that won't make them go away. They too need some serious measures to do more than just get them 'under control'

[scy]

Originally Posted by help

tap=ke a piece of white paper, and run it along the leaves of the succulent. if red dots/ splotches are on the paper when your done. its spider mites..

EDIT- SHOULD BE TAKE NOT TAPE

Thanks for the advice! The particular succulent are two Echeverias, so I just ran moistened Q-Tips with rubbing alcohol through all the leaves and crevices. I wonder if that's the reason why the leaves on the bottom keep drying up and dying out - spider mites. They were everywhere! It looked like I sprinkled pepper all over or something. However, I think they might be all over the roots. I think I'll soak it in physan for a few minutes to be safe. I'm also soaking the medium and container in physan now as we speak. Hopefully this will fix the problem.

[silken]

I think Physan is an antibacterial or fungul not a miticide.

[scy]

Originally Posted by Eyebabe

Put some of the bits or a piece of a dunk in your filled water container an hour or so prior to watering your plants. I would leave the stuff in there after you are done watering and water for a few weeks like this before dumping the stuff out.
It works nicely to control the fungus gnats.
I use "as needed"

Phearamedusa & Eyebabe: Thank you for the tips on getting rid of the fungus gnats. I know they're not harmful but just annoying to get up in the morning to mist my plants before I make coffee only to have the gnats fly into my face, probably saying "Leave my home!" I'm going to get the mosquito dunks tonight.

[scy]

Originally Posted by silken

I think Physan is an antibacterial or fungul not a miticide.

Doh! You're right but I was hoping soaking them in the chemicals would be enough to kill anything.

[silken]

Use Malathion or some other miticide for THE chemical. Too much Physan might hurt the plant in other ways and not kill the mites.

[scy]

Ok I just gave the Echeveria back to my in-laws. I still have the spider mite infested leca. How do I kill them off so I can reuse it?

[silken]

You can boil them in a large pot for 10 or 15 mins, should kill everything off!

[Eyebabe]

I recently got some new plants and having had some scale issues in the past for which I used local treatment or local sprays...I decided to do a "big" treatment. I bought Malthion and Orthonex and decided to use the Orthonex as it claimed to have some treatment also in there for common fungal ailments.

Holy Nuclear Bomb Batman!! I used a respirator and some safety glasses, gloves and booties LOL
I sprayed my 180 or so plants with a mister and unloaded a gallon of that stuff.
The plants look great!!!
Fortunately, we have a greenhouse so it's not in the home of course. But I am quite impressed and won't hesitate to do it again in a week or so to complete the treatment course

[scy]

I wanted to say thank you to all that gave their wonderful input on what to do with my multiple pests (fungus gnats, scale, spiders...) and give an update.

* The mosquito dunks were absolutely the best for getting rid of fungus gnats! I only see one every now and again, which I can certainly live with. It is a definite improvement from multiple ones flying into me when I would peek in at my orchids in the morning.
* As for the scale, I'm still working on it and am moving on to the stronger stuff. If I manage to get rid of it, I'll let you know what worked for me.
* Spiders were just random occurrences and haven't seen anymore.
* I have come to realize that I have mites on my cymbidium and spider mites on a den (segregated away from the others). The cym has red and yellow specs when I went through the leaves with rubbing alcohol to clean off the scale. Hopefully, the malathion and systemic will kill them off along with the scale.