HELP! BUGS, FUNGUS, OR BACTERIA OH MY!

Hello orchid friends,
I'm having some kind of issue going in in my orchidarium. I believe that it might be fungus, bacteria or insects. I'm leaning towards mites of somekind. I will post a couple pictures of the leaves on some of my plants. Whatever it is, it seems to be going after my Pleurothallids more then my other orchids. Spotting and pitting on top and underside of leaves. I possibly might be under fertilizing too. I use MSU 1/4 strength. I try to fertilize at every watering then every once in a while use straight RO but I have had a lot going on the last few months. I did some searching on the forum and I see people have uses the Bayer products. I when to Home Depot and I found two different Bayer products and I'm not sure which one to use. There a Bayer all in one that says it's a systemic but also a fertilizer and then there's a Bayer 3 in 1 but I don't see systemic on the bottle. I'm gonna post pics of them and of anyone knows which I should use that would be great. Also should I water the plants before I spray and do I spray down in the sphagnum of the potted plants? If I should spray really good and soak the sphagnum. I've lucked out for a really long time and never had a problem. So I don't really have experience with this issue. I'm also not sure if I should dilute the product more becasue I grow sensitive plants. For anyone that's been posting info about the Bayer products your help is very appreciated or anyone that can help! Thank you my orchid friends!

 

Marni you are the best! Always a fantastic help! Now to kill these jerk mites!

 

Just ordered the Avid. Wowee it's pricey... It's worth it to kill these stupid mites. It really sucks when something like this happens. You automatically think it's something you did like over watering, under fertilizing, etc. I felt like I was the most awful grower. At least I can blame it on the bugs!

 

It also happened so fast! Plants were great a boom! catastrophe! I have a feeling we're it came from and it wasn't that long ago at all. My fault for not having a long enough quarantine.

 

I've been going threw my collection and seeing a lot of damage. I'm trying to find the mites but I don't see them. I see the damage and found webbing at the base of a couple plants. This is just awful! My poor Draculas and Masdevallias! I took a couple pics threw my jewelers loop and a regular pic of my Dracula lotax. I just changed the sphagnum on my lotax let then 2 months ago and it looked perfectly fine. It's harder to get to in the vivarium and I couldn't see the damage from above. These mites are no joke!

 

Thank you Marni! This weekend I'm pulling everything out! Treating and disinfecting everything! Same for the following weekend. I'm also gonna add another small fan. There's a corner I think isn't getting enough air movement. Then making sure I stay on top of quarantining my new plants. My friend recommended using Pharm products as a preventative. I think I will use them in my routine. This to shall pass lol!

 

Thank you so much! You made me feel better! I feel a little overwhelmed at the moment. Both you and Marni are great helps! I got the Avid Marni recommended. It should be here Friday. It's gonna be a lot of work becasue I grow indoors in an orchidarium. So I'm gonna have to bring everything outside to spray. I read that you can't spray this stuff indoors. It's OK though anything I have to do to get rid of it. Plus I can disinfect the tanks while my orchids are drying outside. I have two orchidariums and I grow on a windowsill. The orchidarium that got infected has all my prized orchids in it. I will beat this and be a little wiser from it! =)

 

Hey Marni!
Just wanted to say thank you so much! The Avid worked amazing! My plants are saved! Some of my plants have been set back becasue of damage from the mites. I'm just happy there gone! Now I can nurse my babies back to good health! Before I started to spray I had such a hard time trying to find the spidermites. I was taking plants out every day and looking over them with my eye loop. I couldn't find any of them! Finally I spotted one and your right! They are crazy fast! I guess every time I picked up a plant they ran. So far after spraying I found two dead ones. That took a lot of searching lol. I have one more spraying to do and I think that should do it.
Thank you so much again,
Jonathan

 

Thank you for the information! I use RO to and MSU from repotme.com. It's interesting you say that about the fertilizer and the connection to spidermites. I believe I was under fertilizing and that's when the issues started. I've gone back to using 1/4 strength at almost every watering.
It was a big project! Since I grow indoors in two orchidariums I couldn't spray in the house. Many trips in and out of the house. I also did a major scrub down and disinfected everything. I feel a lot better now lol.