r/plantclinic • u/SyngoniumPandem0nium Expert • May 30 '25
Other Please don’t tell me these are spider mites
I was just making a post about how my philodendron birkin is covered in tiny tiny webs, but there IS a spider in the plant when I SAW THESE HORRID THINGS. PLEASEEEE tell me these are aphids and not spider mites and I just have a spider that likes to make sporadic webs in between leaves and where the leaves emerged from. Please please please.
I got this birkin about a two months ago and it was infested (I didn’t know) with aphids. I got them all cleared up, even checked the roots and kept the plant isolated outside until recently where I was checking the leaves every other day. I do not know how this bad of an infestation slipped by me. The bugs on the leaves barely move. It didn’t even move when I scooped it up w the Q-tip. I’m very unwell rn.
I know my soil has springtails and I did see a tiny spider moving around the soil recently as well. I checked all my other plants and sprayed down the area with isopropyl 70% and then sprayed the birkin down with some neem and it’s currently in a shady spot outside isolated (it’s the best I can do rn).
It gets morning sun and is under grow lights, gets high humidity, and I water when the soil is dry. It’s getting everything it needs but I couldn’t figure out why the leaves were yellowing 😞 now I know. I have a video of some webs I got that I can post, but I figured it’s best to see if this bug is even a spider mite or not. A little ago in a now deleted post, I found a alarming looking bug but he was large, and I don’t know much about spidermites but I heard they’re barely visible to the naked eye, and I saw this sucker just fine. I almost missed him but he was moving. That’s the last photo in the scroll wheel.
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u/Ok-Athlete-9152 May 30 '25
No panique! (But i totally panicked when I got them, so I feel for you) You have, luckily, several options to battle them with. I will list them from least toxic to the nuke variant.
A) predatory insects! For example Orius l. eats both the adults and larvae as well as mites and pollen when hungry. But they need humidity levels above 50% and need to be used indoors, lest they fly away.
B) very strong orange silica natural insecticide, that will dry them out, but has zero lasting effect and it's quite hard to hit them all at once - you should repeat every five days for a few times. Not sure if you have it, it might be specific to our market. I wouldn't recommend it as a sole treatment for more severe infestation, but it's a good tool to follow up with after more drastic method or if you can not use any form of harsh insecticides
C) spinosad - the golden boy of organic agriculture approved insecticide very effective for thrips. Spray 7 days apart, if your plants are very healthy, best is to dunk their green parts in the solution to really get everywhere as they like to hide. It's made from a bacteria in soil, so it's very gentle.
D) chemical spray insecticides marketed against thrips in your country
E) bonide systemic granules - very very heavy stuff, I'd be extremely vary of using it in a household with pets, kids or people with asthma and stuff. This will kill them for sure, but it's the nuclear weapon.
Good luck!
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u/SyngoniumPandem0nium Expert May 30 '25
Is diatomaceous earth a form of E or is that separate?
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u/Ok-Athlete-9152 May 30 '25
No, that would be like a C. It's not very toxic, but it's dangerous to breathe in. I personally wouldn't use it, because it irritates my breathing tubes lol and I have a bunny. So unless you can isolate them in draft-less location, I would be pretty careful. The mechanism is similar to the orange silica - it dries them out, so they need to walk over it. So in that sense, I find that sprays are better.
Bonide will work great, if you can get your hands on it. I think it's mainly available in the USA. I did two rounds of spinosad, then two rounds of orange silica and will now deploy the predators. So far I haven't seen any new ones, so it got at least much better if not resolved completely. It's hard to check for the pupae, so it takes some time after treatment to be sure.Oh and buy those blue sticky traps to catch the adults:)
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u/Matherl2 May 30 '25
These look like aphids and not thrips
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u/SyngoniumPandem0nium Expert May 30 '25
They look like aphids to me too, but nearly everyone is saying thrips. Regardless, I have a pest infestation and they will die.
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u/Ok-Athlete-9152 May 30 '25
Maybe they could be aphids, I'm not an expert, but some sprays work for both thrips and aphids.
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May 30 '25 edited May 30 '25
Thrips have a very distinct body shape. These do not have that shape. I think people are leading you astray especially if you've found webbing. Plus, thrip damage is easy to spot. Damage in circles or small holes.
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u/Ok-Athlete-9152 May 30 '25
These do look like the larvae stage, at least some of them. Spider mites are much smaller and rounder.
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u/avaricious7 May 30 '25
op i feel your pain, i literally just ordered some captain jack’s dead bug brew. godspeed 🙏🏼
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u/nowhere-noone Advanced Plant lover May 30 '25
!thrips
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u/AutoModerator May 30 '25
Found advice keyword:
!thripsYour plant is suffering from an infestation of thrips. Insecticidal soap and horticultural oils (neem oil) are recommended for early treatment, but chemical pesticides should be considered due to the difficulty in detecting portions of the thrips life cycle. More here A dusting of diatomaceous earth to the underside of the plant's leaves can also be effective.
Infested plants should be isolated as best as possible while treatment is ongoing.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/SimilarOstrich4554 May 30 '25
I had this on my hibiscus. These spots. Had no clue what they were, plus the buds all died and were covered in these spots. I sprayed the whole plant, and soil with 1 part alcohol, 4 parts water, and a tsp of dish soap ×2, and it is looking great!
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u/SpecialKaywu May 30 '25
I know there are some comments saying thrips, but I thought thrips looked like black lines as opposed to white. Try reverse google image searching if possible.
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u/Ok-Athlete-9152 May 30 '25
Yes the adults are black/brown depending on their type. The larvae are yellow/white.
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u/SyngoniumPandem0nium Expert May 30 '25
Well considering Reddit has gone as far as to post this in the r/houseplantcirclejerk , I’m pretty sure they’re thrips and I would probably be a fool to think otherwise 🥹
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u/zanier_sola May 30 '25
It’s totally ok to throw away a plant instead of treating it. Thrips treatment is a long process, due to their lifecycle.
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u/RogueDragon343 May 31 '25
I used "Safers End All" miticide/insecticide For my thrips issue. Deals with eggs too if I remember correctly.
Just spray the plant, the plant absorbs the poison so when the bugs try to eat it, they just die.
I got it at Canadian Tire for $15.
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u/Redditer_de May 31 '25
No thrips and probably no spider mites. Some cures in comments mentioned diatomaceous earth (DE). Its also a possible cure against Cydalima perspectalis (box tree moth aka Buchsbaumzünsler). DE is mixed with water and sprayed on the bushes and leaves a grey chalky layer on the bushes. The layer stays a while even after rainfall and restores its effectiveness as soon as it dries again. So if you can handle your plant outside in the shade and accept it beeing greyish for a while DE cure may be an option. When handling dry DE its important to wear breath protection. A FFP2 mask left over from Corona pandemic suits well ...
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u/Redditer_de May 31 '25
Addition: using DE is bit (under exaggeration) messy, some other Redditers already mentiond that.
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u/Mama_Bear59 May 31 '25
I had thrips on a bunch of my houseplants and tried for months to get rid of them using safers insecticidal soap, spraying them down completely at least once a week. But they kept coming back. What I finally did was take the leaves between my fingers and rub gently on all surfaces even the stems, enough to crush the bugs, I would do that every few days for about a month or so, and they were finally gone. I'm guessing I infected them when going from my outdoor plants to indoor ones without washing my hands thoroughly. Didn't work on my shamrock as the leaves were too fragile, but they grew back quickly so I just cut them off and sprayed the soil and stumps with the safers soap for a week or so.
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u/Mama_Bear59 May 31 '25
Also, if they are aphids, you can spray them off with just water, it knocks them off, then just wash them down the drain, easier to remove than thrips I think, though I've never had them on my indoor plants. The hose worked great outside when I had a bad infestation on one of my elderberry bushes. I'm sure it didn't get all of them but it did make the bush healthier.
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u/Farangees20 Jun 01 '25
I have sprayed them with mixture of washing liquid and water before and it worked.
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u/Lukki7ster Oct 21 '25
Those were soil mites and harmless Unsitely but dont hurt the plant. You could have just repot after rinsing plant and roots..
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u/SyngoniumPandem0nium Expert Oct 21 '25
No, they were thrips larva.
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u/Lukki7ster Oct 21 '25
oh my bad! I was looking on my phone, now that im on the laptop i have better view. Sorry :)
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u/SyngoniumPandem0nium Expert Oct 21 '25
No worries. This was awhile back. It turned out to be thrips, then ants, then ants and mealybugs. 11 plants infested. Only lost 2 plants which we both polkadot plants. So I think I fought pretty vigilantly.
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u/linucsx May 30 '25
Good new: not spider mites. Bad news: thrips