spiders in my plants.

[gahligahli]

I have 3 lovely bubblicious females living in the ground outdoors next to my compost bin.

 

But a certain breed of small spiders has started to migrate from a tree to my plants, and every time i come back to them there are new webs everywhere, which i immediately brush off. They also appear to be making homes for themselves at the very tips of some of the leaves, which is immediately obvious because it causes the end of the leaf tip to bend.

 

 

Anyway, HOW do I get rid of these little creatures? Some sort of spray? Or is there nowt that can be done? :S

 

Because the last thing i want is some nuggs with spider eggs in there

 

Thank you all!

[SukonmiSkunk]

if they are normal spiders.. and not mites.. they probably wont do much to harm the buds at all... the web may start to restrict the airlow and maybe cuase some issues...

 

as for dealing with them.. i am not really sure... if it was an insect that was eating the plants then i would suggest a garlic spray.. as that taste like shit.. and they fuck off very qickly... I guess the only thing I could suggest is to just keep killing them and brushing off the webs... fly spray might work.. for a bit.. but you dont want to be spraying too much of that shit on your plants...and also it will need to be washed off...in veg it would be ok.. but buds.. it might ruin them.... the flavour for sure...

 

some one will definately have a better idea...

[Shithappens]

How far along are the buds ??

 

If not really formed then mortien and a good hosing afterwards would be easy. as SS said

 

But i would defiantly NUKE the surrounding bushes before you attempt to manually remove the ones on plant or do whatever technique you decide.

[Dave The Nefarious]

most Aussie spiders prefer living in dry areas so if you hose the plant off each day it might be enough to get the little guys to move on without having to resort to pesticides. Alternatively you might want to just hold back and see how much of the plant is being used by the spider - he might set up permanent camp under one leaf and just stay there for a couple weeks, in which case the sacrifice of 1 stem wont be much of an issue come harvest time if he's left the rest of the plant alone. It really depends on what species it is, do you know?

[Iceage]

I had much the same problem, they aren't getting any webs on them now since I have moved them though. For a few weeks I would come out and see a few light/small webs hanging around and one day I found this little family. They hadn't nested there as I inspect them all the time.

 

The type of spiders I had on there were them money spiders. One larger one, a smaller one and then a baby. I got rid of them and I am glad I haven't found any webs since the move as the webs were annoying me to. I tried looking for a few images on the net but can't find anything under money spiders. This is what I remember them being called when I was a kid. They are small (maybe 1/2cm) at full size and have some sort of round shape thing on their back. Perhaps these are the spiders the original poster is talking about?

[Dave The Nefarious]

I tried looking for a few images on the net but can't find anything under money spiders.

did you try google images? there's a few results there ... even an origami spider made from money

http://images.google.com/images?q=%22money...r%22&nojs=1

[stonedstump]

I had them on one of my outdoor plants last year. They were just little spiders that made my plant their home and there ended up being heaps of them on there probably about 10 or more.

 

They never appeared to cause any harm and never did in the end so I just left them (not that I could get rid of them anyway)

 

So when I harvested my buds I just filled up the bath about 1/4 full and dunked the plant in a couple times then let it dry on newspaper.

 

They all floated to the top and drowned and I got buds with no spiders in them. Happy ending

[Iceage]

I had much the same problem, they aren't getting any webs on them now since I have moved them though. For a few weeks I would come out and see a few light/small webs hanging around and one day I found this little family. They hadn't nested there as I inspect them all the time.

 

The type of spiders I had on there were them money spiders. One larger one, a smaller one and then a baby. I got rid of them and I am glad I haven't found any webs since the move as the webs were annoying me to. I tried looking for a few images on the net but can't find anything under money spiders. This is what I remember them being called when I was a kid. They are small (maybe 1/2cm) at full size and have some sort of round shape thing on their back. Perhaps these are the spiders the original poster is talking about?

 

Yeah bud, I found images of spiders, none like the ones I was looking for. I even typed up Money Spider in Wikipedia and got some scientific name and looked this up, again nothing of which I can put the same image to. Tinsy winsy little spiders where your mother/father always use to call money spiders and had no problems if you played with them. The spiders. How these spiders look close up will probably be a different story, it's amazing how ugly the house/rain spider looks if you get your Digi Cam on it close up compared to normal eye view.

[gahligahli]

Thank you all so much for your responses!

 

So far I have been doing as was suggested early on and hosing my plants, morning and night. Unfortunately exterminating the little spidies from the other plants in the areas surrounding my potplants would be... challenging! nigh on impossible. which is frustrating, but with an outdoor grow we must come to deal with these things Anyway, for now I will keep up just the hosing and waving my hands around the plants to catch any webs.

 

I wonder if I stopped sweeping their webs away they would stop spinning new ones? *ponders*

 

 

I'm not too keen on spraying with mortein or some other fly spray, but if other people have successively done it and would recommend it then I guess it can't be that bad! How much of it leeches into the soil and root system after spraying it off with water? But if I can't remove the root of the problem they'll always just keep coming back. *ponders again*

 

Also, I'm not too sure about how far along my plants are timewise, but they're starting to get their 3rd or 4th set of pistils on them. So the first couple of weeks of flowering. They've got a way to go yet. About how far into flowering can they be before fly spray becomes a definite no-no?

 

As for my species of spider. Well I tried googling it, which is hard when one doesn't know the name of it. I looked at countless images of "common australian spiders", to no avail. Though I did scare myself into being convinced that there are ghastly looking hairy spiders all over the house waiting to kill me :S the funnelweb in particular always freaks me, even since childhood. very pleased we don't have them over here (tas).

 

I always thought that money spiders were the ones that looked like tiny red specks scurrying about?

 

My description of the spiders in my plants is:

 

- probably no more than 4 mm across

- light brown almost white in colour

- lighter brown or yellow stripe down the middle of the abdomen running lengthwise

- 1 stripe either side of the middle stripe, but these 2 stripes have one smooth edge and one jagged zig zaggy edge each

- leaf curling capabilities

- 8 legs

 

A prize to anyone that can work it out I would take a picture but my digital camera sucks too hard for closeup stuff like that.

 

So anyway, breaking it down what I think I will do is:

 

Keep up the hosing.

Monitor the situation.

Keep on hosing.

If the hosing appears to be doing jack after a couple of weeks, I'll reconsider using spray on them, if they aren't to far along. OTHERWISE:

I'll leave them alone completely and utilise stonedstumps idea of dunking them after they're picked later down the track.

 

Does that sound decent?

 

Thanks again everyone for your help

[Iceage]

Bud, I think the tiny red speck spiders are the ones you need to worry about. Are these not spider-mites?

 

4mm is correct for my definition of a money spider. They have short 8 legs (and the length of the legs are about the same length of their bodies) and the ones on mine were nearest to grey in colour but I have seen them in brown. I am 80% sure I had the same spiders on my plants. I thought they may have been what is called a jumping spider to but not sure if I am remembering the same species.

 

If I was you I would not let them keep the same web, keep destroying their home IMO.

 

I really wouldn;t use Mortien etc either. you can by herbal pestisides and other such P starting named pestisides from such like Bunnings.