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Springtails: Hidden heroes or pest? · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today we're talking about springtails,
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  which are little critters that live in lots of growing media, not just soil.
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  Cocoa, rockwool, you'll find them in most growing medias. And they have six
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  legs, their body's divided into three parts, but they're not classed as insects.
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  It's a debatable area, but scientific consensus at the moment,
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  and most importantly Wikipedia, says that they are not insects,
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  but they are closely related.
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  They are not a pest and my colleague matthew gets a lot of phone calls and questions
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  where people have sent in pictures especially from grow shops where they're saying what's this.
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  People who don't know what they are for the first time new growers and they've they've found these.
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  Animals which is what they are and they're jumping around hence the name springtails
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  on the surface of the grow media and they think oh my god what are they are
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  they fungus gnats are they some sort root aphid, something even worse.
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  So they thrips, often mistaken for thrips.
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  And no, they're not. They are not eating the plants. They're eating the dead,
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  dying sort of organic matter in the soil or the grow media.
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  And they might be eating the algae or the fungus, but they're not eating the plant.
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  And people will say, but there's loads of them and they're clogging up my filters,
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  which, you know, and normally that's just a sign that you've not put anything
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  in your soil to kill them, which is a good thing.
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  You know, you're not using biocides, you're not using pesticides you'll
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  get loads of springtails especially if the grow media is very wet
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  they can block some filters up but in
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  the whole they're not to worry about really they're just a bit
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  annoying and there's two real
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  types you get a long type here with a long body or you
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  get this one with a big big booty and a
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  big bum and then and they're the two types
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  that you get if you if you have a dissecting microscope you
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  can look under your soil under the microscope you'll see springtails all
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  the time they're one of the most common animals in the soil and they're a sign
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  of a good good system where everything's working well obviously you don't want
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  too many but you know it's not something you would put a pesticide on to control
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  you've got other problems to be thinking about other than controlling springtails
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  and what else can we say about them not a lot.
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  If you think they're an insect comment below and give me grief but yeah they
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  can jump a long way as well for the size of their body so springtails that's
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  been hydroponics daily for today.