What are these BUGS in my pots??

[Mini Mango!]

My dear Gardners,

How are you all?

I have a question.. These bugs have been bugging me for years. So I've decided to ask you, who ARE THEY, what do they DO in my soil and how can I GET RID of them?

They are so tiny that you hardly see how they look like, only with my camera I now know that they have only 6 legs lol!! The largest ones are about 1,5mm long. Small ha?
They look silverfish-gray and move very fast.

I hope someone can help me.. Thanks!!

[img]https://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af103/Umm-Ameenah/1.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af103/Umm-Ameenah/2.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af103/Umm-Ameenah/3.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af103/Umm-Ameenah/4.jpg[/img]

[SaulsX]

My guess would be springtails.

[Mini Mango!]

Hm.. I'm not sure about springtails.. they also have no tails actually.. and look kinda diferent..

[SaulsX]

Hm.. I'm not sure about springtails.. they also have no tails actually.. and look kinda diferent..

I'm at a loss, then. I found a bunch of tiny, white bugs, that jumped when disturbed, in my worm bin, which I'm pretty sure were springtails. So, I was going by some research I did.

You're right that most of them have tails. But, I've read that some species living in the soil have a reduced furcula, or don't have one at all. I came across some images of springtails that look very similar to the ones you posted.

Here are some links:
[url]https://www.collembola.org/taxa/cyphoder.htm[/url]
[url]https://www.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/efauna/CollembolaofBC.html[/url] (read 3rd paragraph under "Description")
[url]https://www.fathom.com/feature/122603/[/url] (3rd paragraph under "Body plan")

[Mini Mango!]

Yeah in the first link it looks like it.. possible possible..
Thanks!

[I like plants]

Are these harmfull to the plant? My sister's Azalea has a few of them. What do they do?

[akoch]

I don´t think they are harmful. As far as I know they live on dead organic matter.

[Mini Mango!]

Great! So they are scavengers lol..
Thanks.

[FieldofFlowers]

I used to have quite a few in my houseplants, but I seem to have gotten rid of most of them somehow. They thrive in moist soil, maybe even too wet. My experience with them was they seemed to do no harm to healthy plants,in fact they seemed to keep them alive by feeding off harmful mold. If I got rid of them,the mold took over and rotted the plants.

Dying plants: They will go in and eat the rotten parts of a plant.I can't say for sure if that will kill the plant,or if the plant is already doomed and they just love to feed off it. In a few cases I've had sick plants recover by introducing a population.In others,the plant was too far gone. I consider them pretty beneficial, but it depends on what kind. The long white ones seem to be the most helpful. The gray ones are probably okay, though I see them outside more than inside.

[Mini Mango!]

Thanks FieldofFlowers!

I'll call them my Helpful Gardener-s ..

[KittieKAT]

I've noticed theses guy's ina few of my pots Aswell they seem to eat the dying flower buds and stuff like that, I havent noticed any thing harming my collection in my experience but they do drive me a little nutty! I'm NOT a bug person at all!!! Recently I found this big guy enjoying one of my jade plant's and he didn't wanna leave... but after I saw that he knocked over a few of my cacti buds that were about to flower by trying to land on them I decided to show him the door and thru him off my sun porch.