OctoBuggery!
[I posted a version of this elsewhere, but I think it might be of interest to this crew…]
I had a plant recently that was ailing in a way I’ve never seen before. On closer inspection, I realized that the tiny white flecks floating on the surface of my octopup reservoir wasn’t actually perlite dust when I saw them swimming about happily!
This lovely Gorilla Grove plant, newly in flower…
…was being menaced by these creepy octo bugs. I noticed them first scattered across the water surface in the micro octopot reservoir.
Then they multiplied and began forming into clusters. This behavior seems intentional, if you scatter a cluster, they’ll begin randomly twitching about until they find a friend and one by one, reassemble. Unwelcome guests in my octopuppies!
They are very hard to photograph, but these show some structure. I think they are bright white, about 1 millimeter in length.
The OG Pest Wizards promptly identified the little buggers as Springtails, a common but fairly innocuous critter commonly found in aquariums where they feast on algae. They aren’t particularly harmful, but I didn’t want them around.
Before a complete refresh of the reservoir, I dosed them with Hydrogen peroxide, and Hydrochlorous Acid. Those both seem to kill the adults but not the eggs.
I also purchased a submersible UV sanitizer light to keep them from coming back.
This widget is intended for aquariums for sanitizing the water as it flows into the circulation pump. It produces 15 watts of UVC which is enough to kill or deactivate organics that get anywhere near it. I can verify that it kills SpringTails with extreme prejudice, and it has also kept the walls of my main reservoir from getting slimey.
It has a convenient timer that allows you to choose how many hours the light should shine each day. The lowest setting is three hours and that’s what I’ve been using. The light is waterproof and stays in the reservoir permanently.
Seems to work so far, $20 on the AmZone!
-Grouchy