Mites!?

Brentholey

Established Member
So I was cleaning and thought I seen some springtails in the soil of my plants. I took a clump of soil out of the pot and dropped it into my palm. I see a couple springtails but I also notice what I believe are mites. They are brown fast and remind me spiders scurrying around as if they are searching for something. I don’t see any webs and I’m not having any problems with any plants that I can tell. I don’t see them on my plants just in the soil. Are all mites bad? Are these going to cause a problem for me? I don’t know how to identify something so small and no adverse*reactions
 
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So with a closer inspection it seems some are smaller and white and some are brown. Maybe two types of mites? Or different aged mites? Also I’m not really sure that the springtails I’m seeing are actually spring tails I’ve never put any bugs into my soil so do springtails occur naturally?
 
@jamest0o0 plz don’t ignore me my lord. The bugs have attacked and we need your help! Your peasants are helpless without you my lord :notworthy:
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Are there any small webs under the leaves?
No the only spots I can see on my plant are on the very top leaves of my Schefflera plant I think it’s gettimg burned from the lights a little. I’m at least for now chalking it up as irrelevant. But no webs or anything like that I did go through and search this evening for webs, couldn’t find any.
 
From what I’m reading there’s no real way to tell what kind of mites they could be without a microscope or until they cause harm. And they are not all harmful
 
When I had mites (spider mites) this is what I did

1. Repotted all plants and gave roots a 5%ish bleach bath

2. Wiped all leaves down with a wet paper towel

3. Wipe entire cage with wet paper towel

4. Repeat 2-3 daily with the wet paper towel.

With an animal you really gotta do manual removal. In my house plants I use the same repotting method and neem oil on the leaves. Obviously cant put anything on the leaves in a cham enclosure. So- like I said? Manual removal.
Hope that helps.
 
Just detritus mites, common and harmless, usually when excess moisture/food are present. Nothing to worry about, they tend to clear out after a while too. Only time I don't like them is with my snails because they crawl over the shells and annoy them. They only feed on rotting matter, they don't hurt anything, can just be annoying. In this case, absolutely nothing to worry about.

As for springtails, they tend to pop up in soil overtime, very easy for the eggs to hitch in.
 
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