"Bingo! It all makes perfect sense when you realize they are not RAs."
"people call "micro RAs" (incorrectly)"
maybe you can help ID what these are then.
here is some background info. i have been growing indoors for about 16 yrs - 4 yrs at this location. i had everything dialed in for many years until i had to stop for a short time. when i restarted i got clones that were infected. I was growing in rockwool and using the same methods in the same location that worked for years in the exact same manner. i started seeing phantom deficiencies especially Mg looking def but the plants looked pretty good in Veg. when put into flowering about 3 -5 weeks in depending on the treatments, the leaves would start looking worse turning chlorotic then necrotic. this would happen on leaves at the top and bottom of the plants. the plants would stretch and are very weak and the buds maybe 1/4 to 1/6 the size during a normal grow.
My environment is sealed, 84 degrees, 55% humidity, 1500ppm co2. Nat gas co2 generator, environmental controller and i have grown great buds in these same rooms in the exact same manner when i first encountered this problem. Before i knew what the problem was, i basically changed everything in the grow before i saw the bugs. I installed new CO2 monitor (i thought it was something in the atmosphere??), changed nutrient brands from PBP to ionic to
General Hydroponics to H&G. I tried over 10 different strains and even tried different mediums moving from rockwool to DWC to coco. every grow had the exact same problems.
onto the bugs. i think there is no way i can get a pic of these things - i found a pic and attached of what they look like. i can barely find one with a 30X loupe let alone take a pic. i have tried when i had them by the thousands and still could not get a focused shot. i looked at google pics of soil mites and what i have looks nothing like any soil mite pic i have seen. the bugs i have are the size of bugs in the pic of the OP, they look just like RA pics on google but very very small, they are whitish/clear in color, they have 2 horns coming out of their ass and sometimes have another aphid popping out of their butt. i dont know much about soil mites but lets talk about how these bugs behaved in DWC. In DWC i was doing some different experiments with these bugs to see the reaction- in several buckets i ran a very basic nutrient formula that was just lucas using GH nutes. the roots in the DWC buckets would start out beautifully - nice white roots with lots of small hairs and the roots would have a herring bone appearance with many tiny branches coming off main roots. these bugs i could see hundreds of them eating away at the roots. they will eat every tiny hair and all the small root branches leaving only a main root that looked like overcooked spaghetti. so at the end of the run there would be a large rootball with all tiny hairs and branches eaten off. i ran a few buckets with IMID added and let them soak for weeks and it never killed them(these plants were for testing purposes and thrown away). i had a hard time adding pesticides and other treatment to the buckets as they would bubble/foam up too much so i decided to try coco because i thought it would be easier to battle them. does this sound like soil mites? can soil mites survive in DWC buckets?
the only common factor i saw in all these grows which took place over about a 2yr span is these little bugs which i have never seen before. same story in coco - i can spot them eating away at the roots. i also notice the infected plants will get a fungal gnat explosion and i believe root aphids excrete a nectar that the FG larvae thrive on. since these new little bugs i have seen more fungal gnats than all my years growing. Also seen is the presence of a white waxy substance in the medium.
if these are not root aphids please help me identify what they could be. sorry i can get no pics. if these are harmless soil mites maybe someone can point me in another direction because i think i am loosing my mind! any help is greatly appreciated.
