Mites found in moss bark mix!!

[POLKA]

I want to add my two cents

Mites are quite microscopic. Unless you have a magnifying glass, you won't see them. As Ray said, they feed on living plant parts.

You may have some sort of thrips, aiming by the location in which you found the buggers. Your treatments, thus far, will probably do the trick, though you may need more than one treatment to make sure.

If you don't have mites, but you treat with a strictly miticide, some of, or most of them don't knock out six legged insects.

Regardless, hope you get them under control. Thrips will damage your blossoms.

Take care
Rex

[lepetitmartien]

The "shiny black beetles" of mites, are armless acarians. Not all acarians want to suck your blooood.

They can be seen by eye and are more on pot with old substrate.

Some acarians may even be your friends, if you don't kill everything on sight like the Rambo on the prowl. They can be predators of other mites, those that are dangerous for orchids.

springtails are armless, and not all spring… but the substrate then is too old.

[lotis146]

Originally Posted by lepetitmartien

The "shiny black beetles" of mites, are armless acarians. Not all acarians want to suck your blooood.

They can be seen by eye and are more on pot with old substrate.

Some acarians may even be your friends, if you don't kill everything on sight like the Rambo on the prowl. They can be predators of other mites, those that are dangerous for orchids.

springtails are armless, and not all spring… but the substrate then is too old.

Don't mean to hijack original thread btw but lepetitmartien do you mean "harmless" as opposed to armless (without arms)?

Like I said before the plant I found them on has no substrate at all. And on the subject of springtails I just found some on my Paph that as repotted in December & another Paph that's ben repotted this year. But I appreciate the ID on those little things. I may have succeeded in killing them, no sign today although they were there for hours after spraying yesterday. If they're harmless that's great to know but having just received the plants and having the time yesterday to take care of them I just didn't want to risk having them spread further which they tried immediately after spraying.

I'm learning that there are apparently a couple of different species of mites that are harmless. Huh...

Thanks!

[lepetitmartien]

You are covered of harmless acarians (and tardigrads). ^^ (yes, with an 'h', I keep mixing both for 40 years… it's not my language btw)

Plants too.

The arthropod family is the largest of all animal families, and inside them you have arachnids, and inside arachnids : acarians, about 50000 species.

The little brown round are common in culture, GH. Even the ones cultivating marijuana have them sometimes on roots. They supposedly live in soil. Some kind of really big Oribatida (see text for their feeding habits, hence the bad substrate). You may think there's nothing for them to eat, but there's alway some dead veg stuff to last them years.

The bad acarians are living happily on plants in small populations (on the leaves), sucking here and there and we don't see them around at all as they are really tiny. Now, for some reason, conditions, chemicals (some insecticides are really good at making tetranychus lay eggs and raise a lot of babies -they do lay eggs but don't babysit-), the population explodes and you have an issue.

Given the reproduction rhythm of acarians (cycle in a week) they resist very fast to any chemical pressure. So it's a better idea not to use chemicals, or if you do, to use them wisely when it's really needed. And only on the baddies!

[NYCorchidman]

Now I know the name!!! Thank you for the input from France!!!

A few of my orchid pots always had these little (but huge compared to plant-damaging mites) black bugs crawling above the top every time I watered. They would then go back inside once the watering is finished.

I was always wondering what they were, but they didn't seem to hurt my plant and I just figured they are some sort of soil bugs that eat dead plant material in the pot.

It is good to know the name finally!

[lotis146]

Originally Posted by lepetitmartien

You are covered of harmless acarians (and tardigrads). ^^ (yes, with an 'h', I keep mixing both for 40 years… it's not my language btw)

Plants too.

The arthropod family is the largest of all animal families, and inside them you have arachnids, and inside arachnids : acarians, about 50000 species.

The little brown round are common in culture, GH. Even the ones cultivating marijuana have them sometimes on roots. They supposedly live in soil. Some kind of really big Oribatida (see text for their feeding habits, hence the bad substrate). You may think there's nothing for them to eat, but there's alway some dead veg stuff to last them years.

The bad acarians are living happily on plants in small populations (on the leaves), sucking here and there and we don't see them around at all as they are really tiny. Now, for some reason, conditions, chemicals (some insecticides are really good at making tetranychus lay eggs and raise a lot of babies -they do lay eggs but don't babysit-), the population explodes and you have an issue.

Given the reproduction rhythm of acarians (cycle in a week) they resist very fast to any chemical pressure. So it's a better idea not to use chemicals, or if you do, to use them wisely when it's really needed. And only on the baddies!

I saw you're from Paris, if I know a little bit you guys aren't much for H's anyways!

Thanks for this information. It seems to be the consensus that these guys are soil mites and are pretty harmless. In fact I learned that the other bugs on the OTHER Tolumnia are much much smaller and are other harmless mites. (The seller inspected 3 of the Tolu. lucayana they still have in house under a microscope and found two different kinds of mites that they said are both harmless. They've given me the option to send the plant back if I don't want to repot or mess with them at all, I think I might keep and repot.)

I will admit that I feel mildly guilty for killing them (pretty sure I killed most of them as they aren't as present though I still saw a few) since they are apparently harmless. Dare I blame inexperience but I wanted to act fast against them given all 6 of these plants were my first "batch" of new Orchid purchases, and they were all from ebay sellers (so first time buying a bunch, first time with most the species, first time buying online, first time buying from ebay...sheesh) and I choose to be safe rather than sorry. Of course they'll stay in the other room for the next month but considering they're ALL in this room together I had ONE MORE reason to be quick and act on my feet.

So, my apologies to these little creatures but bugs cruising around as they please is not something I encourage. I am grateful for this experience considering that there were a number of us here who didn't know what these were and now we do! Now though this has me wondering: how long do you leave a bug to wait and see if it's harming your plant before you act?

Merci beaucoup LePetitMartien!
Lotis
P.S. Is it a good idea to leave these guys because they eat the decomposing matter, thus cleaning up a bit...? Or is that a stretch?

[lepetitmartien]

Lotis, too bad for your karma

The really beneficial ones for us are the predators of other acarians. Those are auxiliaries and should be protected. It's the soft way to control some pests in GH or winter gardens though the fight is not complete as you must keep the pest to keep the auxiliaries or they go away. They can stand a few months of starvation but usually will go away to find something to eat.

I guess that acarians eating old dead bits, like polydesmes (a composting centipede) are a little beneficial, but they tell there's something dead decaying/composting somewhere, or they wouldn't be around. Their poop is a fertiliser. But it's way less rich than what we feed regularly our beauties, but perfectly unharmful to roots, as long they can stay "in the air" in pots.

The public GH and collections in France are all fighting softly against pests (those receiving public somehow, including those for research), including the oldest public orchid collection of the Serres du Sénat (they have orchids 170 years of age…) and pesticides are forbidden for years. I should post some pics from the great tropical GH from the MNHN, you'll see the devastation.

The only product the Serres du Sénat are using now besides auxiliaries is a spray made of cinnamon essential oil for pests.

It's unfortunate we can't work with auxiliaries when home growing, as the quantity of plants is limited and the conditions are not the best.

I've marked that a common trend on forums with a lot of people from North America is to kill on sight whatever it is. It's a bad habit. Some advertiser/marketeer did his job well, but it's a bad move knowledge wise. This way you never learn what's harmless or beneficial (damn a spider kill kill kill!) I know we don't have the same arthropods, but a spider (those unable to bite us) is a friend to our 'chids. I always leave alone those living at home with me, as long as they are not is a visible place, to show there's activity potentially dangerous to them is a good way to make them change their abode. The nasty ones we have that indadvertedly come inside are expelled, not killed. But it's rare here in Paris, as we have Tegenaria protecting the houses, they are colonizing the USA I know, the good ones will keep the only nasty Tegenaria (agrestis) which is in the US for a century, and others, away. And the spiders making webs will care of flying pests, the salticidae or small wolfspiders will go at the crawling pests. Just don't raise a colony of black widows.

In France, besides regulations for the EU, we have some products forbidden on top of all those that are already, and by 2022 the general public will have to turn 100% to "organic" fight against pests and diseases. So, I think we'd better prepare while we have eventually other options if all goes wrong, to be effective when there will be no other solution.

Remember you have Sue Bottom you can contact at STAUG who is really on top of all things P&D. She's really cool. She even allowed me to use her and her husband pics for my forthcoming conferences I will give on the subject here (duly credited). : (That's the name dropping part

[greenpassion]

I have seen them with a magnifiying glass to see them better. They are tiny tiny very dark almost round, and they crawl. I've found them on the rim and sides of another orchid that I have in S/H, in a glass container. Will Safer soap take care of them? I just treated with Sucra Shield and they are still milling around thru the moss and on the container. UGH.

---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:51 PM ----------

Originally Posted by lotis146

Do your mites look like super tiny little shiny black beetles?

I have a couple of threads looking for help with this now. I just got a plant Saturday and found them on it today. After spraying with Bayer Natria they crawled to another plant that I believed to have little gray mites (they were a lot smaller than the springtails I've seen but now I've found springtails on my Paph 'Pink Fred' and they're all different sizes). I maybe killed the new guys springtails but the little black bugs are still present even after spraying.

Is this what you had (not my pic, found online):

Attachment 97692

They look a lot like those, but flatter and not shiny. They look just like the lice I've seen on birds before. They move and look like lice/mites-is there a difference between the two?

[DavidCampen]

Originally Posted by lotis146

Do your mites look like super tiny little shiny black beetles?

Attachment 97692

I believe that those are a type of Oribatid mite and that they do not harm orchids, unlike spider mites.

Oribatida - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

---------- Post added at 03:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:59 PM ----------

Originally Posted by POLKA

I want to add my two cents

Mites are quite microscopic. Unless you have a magnifying glass, you won't see them.
Rex

Oh, I can see mites with the unaided eye. I do need a magnifying glass to try to identify them.

[lepetitmartien]

The largest one can be seen as little moving dark black/brown drops, still harmless. Note there's a few lines on Oribatids on the AOS website here

If they are around, it's because some bits of vegs is dead and decaying, whatever substrate you use even non organic. There's always something dead in pots, even in S/H.

On my side I won't bother much beyond some cleaning. If there's lots and lots, I'd have a look in the pot and repot after a good cleaning, as it's the real (eventually) issue! (and won't bother

Safer soap will always work against the cuticle of arthropods. Alcool helps to dry once the cuticle made porous by the soap. Plus it's safe and 100% degradable. Trouble is: it works by contact so only when applied, those not touched will thrive.

The mites that are bad for orchids (Tetranichus, Tenuipalpus, Brevipalpus…) are really tiny. Some people (you must have 10+ eyes sight) can see the largest ones, especially when they move along theirs webs, but for the likes of Brevipalpus (no web), there's *no* way you can see them without some magnification. Baddies are really small. Quite normal, they are baaaad so they hide.

(I've written this over 24 hours and can't be sure I've addressed all question, I'll run over this a little later.)