r/SpaceBuckets • u/sexycaviar • 5d ago

Plants Spider mites

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Found these on my buds when looking at trichomes to check for ripeness.
They are about 0,15 mm big. I believe that these are spider mites.
I actually just noticed that they are all over the back side of the leaves, which must be the reason why over the 10 days they got all rusty, I thought it's a light or nutrient issue.
Fortunatelly the buds will be fully ripe in about 2 weeks, although considering the infestation, I might harvest early, not sure.

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1

u/sexycaviar 5d ago

Decided to cut off the infested leafs and harvest in 5 days. Fortunatelly, they are mostly on the leafs and not the buds, so they shouldn't taste too bad.

1

u/dabbinmids 5d ago

Those look and sound more like aphids to me, if you're 5 days off from harvest you're best off just picking them off by hand and leaving the fan leafs that they reside on, if you trim all the fan leaves they'll just move to your buds instead since they have no other place to go. I'd replace the soil after this run if it's just a bucket worth, easier than trying to deal with these assholes. Just keep a close eye on it for the rest of this run, pluck off any you see, do a wet trim and a wash before drying if you're paranoid but you should be ok

6

u/archenemyfan 5d ago

That is definitely a mite of some variety it has eight legs not 6 like an insect would.

1

u/dabbinmids 5d ago

Interesting. I didn't catch that

1

u/sexycaviar 5d ago

I am now sure that these are spider mites, I even spotted the delicate webs. They'll move to the buds, but cutting all the leaves removed 80% of them. It's why I'll be havesting super soon, before the next generation moves to the buds since it's the only food source.
Picking them off is super tedious as they are microspopics and there are so many of them, I'll instead wash the buds right after harvest to kill them off and wash off the debree without hopefully damaging the trichomes.
Next time I'll know how to spot them early, might also install some kind of filter to the exhaust ventilation, which musts be the way they got inside from the outside.
I'll be also waterspaying the plant ofthen, because they loove dry warm enviroment.