munching bugs on ceph

[Bogiron]

Hi guys,
Some how tiny munching bugs found their way into my terrarium and found my nice ceph. The pitchers were getting to be around 1" high. I had live sphagnum moss growing above the peat/sand mix and it is in a 4 " pot.

If anyone has had this problem with their ceph or similar pitcher plant please tell me what actions you took? I misplaced my Savage Garden book which is where I would have turned first for recommendations. It seems like I read somewhere about using Isotox on it.

The lesson I have learned is to put new plants into isolation before putting them with my other plants. I guess the bugs came in with a purchased plant as I haven't noticed damage to my other plants like my Nephs.

[Aidan]

Can you provide photos, or at least an idea of what these bugs look like and their size?

[Bogiron]

They were of the six legged variety and they were in the 0.5 mm size neighborhood. I was to the limit of my eye loupe magnfier.

I only saw one bug but there were a lot of pitchers damaged. There were holes bored in the sides of pitchers. I decided they must be hiding inside the pitchers so I cut off all the affected pitchers and have the plant isolated.

I guess I should have asked my question before I acted. Who knows, perhaps I got all the bugs but I think that isn't too likely. I guess I panicked.

What do you think Aidan?

[RL7836]

Gale,
Are you familiar with the appearance of Springtails? If not, you may be noticing them while the real muncher has eluded your search.

I had a similar incident earlier this year w/ a small Ceph inside a terrarium. I never did locate the beast but it decided to stop it's damage before I went toxic on him.... I never did figure out how it got in there - I hadn't changed nor added anything...

Last year (or year before?) I had some scale on my outdoor Cephs which forced me down the toxic road (I picked them off but kept finding new, hidden ones). Ortho systemic at recommended strength worked with no collateral damage.

[Bogiron]

Hi Ron,
I appreciate your reply. I will pick up some Ortho systemic and give it a shot. Have you used this insecticide on other plant families as well?

I have three 2 inch pots with young D. schizandra plants in and I am experimenting with how I can get it to grow. One of them is making progress. I seems like they don't like to get their leaves wet.

I have them in room humidity and under fluorescent lights for now. I notice one of them that keeps dying back has a mass of small spider like webs or mold all over the live sphagnum moss but I haven't seen any pests. Any ideas what this may be?

[elgecko]

Gale,
Sorry I never answered this email that you sent me.

I have used Ortho on Neps, Sarrs, and VFT's.
I usually have to spray my outside plants (Sarrs, and VFT's) every spring when I start to notice Aphids. The spray does get on some sundews. They hate it and do not die. There leaves dry up for a few days before the new growth returns to normal.

[Bogiron]

Thanks for the info Steve. I started making an Access data base for my plants and want to add notes like yours about what plants people used what spray on and other cultural information. I just can't keep all the multitude of plant needs sorted out in my head so I am using my computer to help.

I am busy examining each indoor plant to look for signs of the bug problem spreading.

Ron,
I looked up SpringTails. I didn't know about them. An interesting bug but nothing to worry about if I do have them, right?

[vraev]

well....springtails are actually good if u toss a few vft seeds in there. I had my VFT seedling pot full of them. The VFT's were always munching them away and some of the seeds have reached the size of a quarter in just under 8 months.

[RL7836]

bogiron said:

Ron,
I looked up SpringTails. I didn't know about them. An interesting bug but nothing to worry about if I do have them, right?

Gale,
IIRC, some on one of the forums (or listserver) was recently making an issue of springtails being the cause of some damage. My meager experience and that of others with which I converse differs. I've yet to see anything where they have caused damage that I can confirm (or strongly suspect). I thought I've read that they are confirmed detrivores....

I mentioned the springtails because your description seemed to match their appearance and since they tend to be fairly ubiquitous in CP collections (although not always noticed until someone goes looking for a bad guy...), I felt you might be blaming (or suspecting) the wrong characters ...

[Aidan]

Everything you ever wanted to know about springtails and possibly a lot more than you wanted to know!

www.collembola.org/

Some great photos including a very effective cross-eye stereogram.

www.geocities.com/fransjanssens/images/lordv/2006/dicsau02.jpg

and err, poetry...

[locko]

Clicked on the top link and I got some weird thing about sending some guy info and that it would reveal my email. Just thought I should warn people

[Aidan]

The link is correct, so I don't know where you went.

The page belongs to an academic in Belgium.

[Not a Number]

I clicked on the link and got a popup that the site was collecting information on what browser I was using in order to eventually optimize the pages.

Seems innocent enough but certainly one needs to be cautious visiting websites these days.

The popup does not appear on subsequent visits so a cookie is probably being set. Clearing cookies will probably re-invoke the popup on the next visit.

[Aidan]

That is the site owner, so yes, harmless and in fact courteous as the information could be and often is collected anyway without the visitors knowledge.

I aggressively block the scourge that are pop-ups and so would never get to see the message.