What is this pest?

[RNCollins]

Hello!

When I water my orchids that are in new bark, I sometimes soak them for a few minutes, thinking that this will help the bark absorb more water. Anyway, while doing this with one of my orchids, all these tiny little things started jumping out of the bark and into the water. They even try to jump back out of the water. They are really small... I'm sure I could never get a picture of them. The bark is quite fresh, maybe 3 months old.

What do you think they are? What can I do to get rid of them?

Thanks!

[NYCorchidman]

springtails. nothing to worry about.
They are everywhere. lol

[RNCollins]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

springtails. nothing to worry about.
They are everywhere. lol

Thanks NYCorchidman. They don't harm the orchids?

[NYCorchidman]

No, I don't think so.
They were discussed here many times and they are just annoying, but not harmful to the plants.

I think they eat on potting mix and dead tissues.

If you don't want to see them, you can always spray, but I wouldn't.

Oh, by the way, by soaking pots, I think I got rid of a lot of them.
They either got washed away, or drowned.
I used to see them a lot on my phals with old bark mix.

I actually do not see them now.
I do have other less annoying bugs. tiny black mites. also not harmful. They are tiny black spherical shaped bugs that move around slowly. They live inside the potting mix and come above the mix when pots are watered.

[RNCollins]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

If you don't want to see them, you can always spray, but I wouldn't.
.

What could I use as a spray? They are now in a few of my orchids. I'm not too happy about having them in the house. All of the potting mix is fresh, no more than 3 months old.

[RJSquirrel]

you have a lot of decomposed media if you have them everywhere. they feed on the detritus matter produced by the bark, moss breaking down. they are actually helping you by controlling macrobiotic outbreaks of fungus and bacteria that would otherwise be present in the media.

"....they can carry spores of mycorrhizal fungi and mycorrhiza-helper bacteria on their tegument, soil springtails play a positive role in the establishment of plant-fungal symbioses and thus are beneficial to agriculture.They also contribute to controlling plant fungal diseases through their active consumption of mycelia and spores of damping-off and pathogenic fungi.It has been suggested that they could be reared to be used for the control of pathogenic fungi in greenhouses and other indoor cultures" thanks to wiki

[RandomGemini]

I wouldn't even worry about spraying. I would just repot the plant with fresh medium with a clean pot. This seemed to kill my springtail problem very effectively.