Aphids Problem

I have never had a bug problem but I think I'm dealing with the start of a aphids problem. I just switched my plant to flower about 10 days ago and all my leafs on one plant are extremely lightly spotted yellow. I looked closely on the leaf and noticed a small bug on the leaf. That made me nervous so I turned over the leaf and I saw other smaller things on the bottom on the leafs which I was unable to recognize. I have 5 plants in my tent and its only on one plant now so i'm looking for the smartest most efficient way to deal with this problem as early as possible. I have looked up how to control them and it says garlic, ladybugs, neem oil but is just tossing this one effected plant away the best method or will I be able to fight these off successfully before they spread to other plants. Also if I continue to battle these throughout flower what will be wrong with my buds? any help would be greatly appreciated

pics of damage...sounds like spider mites

I'm at work I wish I took pics this morning but I was just too pissed walking out the door when I saw them. If they are spider mites I'm pretty much fucked and have to start new correct? I'm flying out to California for a week in a few days so this def couldn't come at a worse time.

The problem is the life cycle has already begun.

I would put sand on top of your pots to cover soil. Prevents bugs from laying eggs
Get the shop vac
Removed all affected leaves
Wash and rinse and repeat

mr.schroederific said:

The problem is the life cycle has already begun.

I would put sand on top of your pots to cover soil. Prevents bugs from laying eggs
Get the shop vac
Removed all affected leaves
Wash and rinse and repeat

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They seem like they are on the backside of leafs not so much coming up from the soil. The leafs are very spotted but are not holes. It almost looks like if you give you plant too strong of a feeding and the tips burn a bit but in this case they are tiny specs all over the leafs.

So far, a lot of useless advice based on a vague description by an inexperienced OP. OP, if you can't give accurate descriptions or pictures then you will get advice from every person who ever saw a bug and wanted to kill it.

SmokeMonster32 said:

They seem like they are on the backside of leafs not so much coming up from the soil. The leafs are very spotted but are not holes. It almost looks like if you give you plant too strong of a feeding and the tips burn a bit but in this case they are tiny specs all over the leafs.

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Where do aphids lay their eggs?

mr.schroederific said:

Where do aphids lay their eggs?

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Again I've never dealt with bug problems but from what i'm reading they give live birth on the leaves. Either way I will just post pictures when I get home and hopefully someone can help me identify how far along whatever problem I have is and what is the best way to get rid of the problem.

Hi smoke monster,

I had to battle aphids for the first time last grow. They sound exactly like the description you gave. Maybe one or two orange/yellow dots on top of leaves and then clusters/colonies in the under portion of the otherwise healthy looking leaves. The way I killed them was simply spraying store bought organic pesticide. I have no idea what the ingrediamts were in the spray but they claimed it was safe to eat, non toxic, and organic (my guess is it was been oil). I made sure to spray just the leaves and not the buds and removed the buds that were inffected. This was very tedious but worth it. The aphids died, did not spread to my other plants and the remainder of buds on the infected plant ended up looking great. When the aphids die they are still on the leaves/buds so you will just need to remove those and cut your losses in my opinion. I have seen others just keep the buds and smoke them anyways haha it's up to you. I'm going to try lady bugs next time cause even though the spray says organic and non toxic, I just don't like the idea of smoking pesticide. Hope this helps

I just had a big aphid problem with my grapes. I use Organicide, it is just fish oil and sesame seed oil. They sell it at all the big home stores like HD and Lowes. Buy the concentrate and follow the directions. Good stuff that actually works.

Picture of bug.. Thinkin more of a spider mite now

Leaf

Hope these help ... If someone needs a better photo let me know what to take the picture of or what info to provide and I'll get it.. Any help is appreciated

Diabolical666 said:

pics of damage...sounds like spider mites

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Do these pictures help? If they are only on 1 of 5 plants bad and a couple leaves of 2 more can I treat these and save them at this stage or will it be an uphill battle all through flower and not worth it.

What kind of pesticides do you have on hand?if you dont have any there are many diy homemade alternatives online...mild soap and water etc

Diabolical666 said:

What kind of pesticides do you have on hand?if you dont have any there are many diy homemade alternatives online...mild soap and water etc

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I have a HTG supply store within walking distance to me along with Lowes and Home Depot so that shouldn't be a problem I just need to know what is the best thing for the plants. I pulled the one plant that is effected the most out of the tent. The four remaining plants do have some leaves that are affected but if this is something that is manageable I think I caught it early enough. If this is something that i'll be wasting two or three months of electricity fighting for shitty weed I'll just pull them all and start new. I just don't know what i'm fighting yet and how bad the fight will be.

Looks like a mite. However it doesn't look like the two spotted mite most people get. Since youre in a tent I would pull that plant and not risk infecting the others.

adower said:

Looks like a mite. However it doesn't look like the two spotted mite most people get. Since youre in a tent I would pull that plant and not risk infecting the others.

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Do you think its a spider mite? The tent is a small tent (2ft x 4ft x 5ft) and they all were touching...now that I pulled that one plant they have some space in between them.

SmokeMonster32 said:

I have a HTG supply store within walking distance to me along with Lowes and Home Depot so that shouldn't be a problem I just need to know what is the best thing for the plants. I pulled the one plant that is effected the most out of the tent. The four remaining plants do have some leaves that are affected but if this is something that is manageable I think I caught it early enough. If this is something that i'll be wasting two or three months of electricity fighting for shitty weed I'll just pull them all and start new. I just don't know what i'm fighting yet and how bad the fight will be.

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Dont give up...what makes a good grower is identifying the problem and solving it...look for a miticide, open the bottle and give it a wiff to make sure its not too abrasive for your plant. Anything that will burn your nose will most likely burn your plants (dont get eco-rid). Bayer garden insect spray works well...make sure you read the instructions

SmokeMonster32 said:

Do you think its a spider mite? The tent is a small tent (2ft x 4ft x 5ft) and they all were touching...now that I pulled that one plant they have some space in between them.

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It looks like a mite for sure. Take pics of the underside of the leaf. They reproduce fast. In a couple days you can have a full blown infestation. Not sure if you're in flower now but if you aren't, do not go 12/12 until you handle them. Mites in flower are bad to deal with.

If you think you have aphids it is most likely going to be root aphids. Which are worse than mites in my opinion. Not sure what medium you are growing in but if you can check the roots. If they are root aphids you will see them all over the roots easily.