Tiny silver bugs on Cym roots
 

Hi everyone ... :waving

I have discovered unwanted visitors on my orchid roots. What I know so far:

1) there's about 10 I can see at all times, in different sizes, which means there's probably 10 000 of them in the media :(
2) they don't jump, seem to have 6 legs and very short antennae, all silver-white and under 1 mm, they hide when I get really close, but not as fast as I would expect
3) there's none on the leaves and no damage I could see anywhere (no white stuff, no marks..)
4) I repotted it about a month and a half ago, so mostly fresh media, only a little was stuck to the roots, which i did not remove
5) none seen on the other orchids, but they have been separated for a long time

There's problems as well. There are 4 spikes on it, so I really don't want to do anything too drastic to it, but I would hate to lose the spikes to the little guys, even though they don't seem interested in the plant itself right now. Also, living in a small country, in the EU, we don't get much of a variety in pesticides or poisons, none that I have seen I would use on my orchids...

I would really love, if someone could identify the little guys and also recommend a household remedy I could use to wipe them out without killing the plant :)

Thank you :)

They're probably springtails. Totally harmless. They eat decaying organic matter like algae and your potting medium.

Here's an interesting clip from Wikipedia:
"However, by their capacity to 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.[31] They also contribute to controlling plant fungal diseases through their active consumption of mycelia and spores of damping-off and pathogenic fungi.[32][33] It has been suggested that they could be reared to be used for the control of pathogenic fungi in greenhouses and other indoor cultures."

Cheers.
Jim

Thanks for that! I was afraid they'd be something worse, since they didn't "spring", when i tried to scare them... oh well, maybe they're just lazy :)

I think they are springtails also :)

These make great clean up crews for those of us keeping tarantulas, scorpions, roaches, and other invertebrates :D

I would love some to start a colony with ;)

I am surprised they did not jump, maybe try poking one with a pair of tweezers or something?

If you want rid, try washing the roots with Methylated spirits/ methanol/denatured alcohol (I use the various names as it is known by all three)

Rubbing alcohol mixed with water works wonders for me.

If you are going to kill them send some to me first though ;) I can pay shipping :D