Tiny White Bugs in Houseplant Soil + Detect Them by Their Images

What are these tiny white bugs in my houseplant soil? Are they harmful to my potted plant? How can get rid of them? To find the answer to these questions, join us in this article.

There are 5 common white bugs in houseplant soil some of them are trouble pests and some are beneficial. These tiny white bugs include:

• Root Aphids
• Fungus gnats
• Springtails
• Isopods
• Root mealybugs (root scales)

To find whether your tiny bugs are harmful to your houseplant or not and how you can control them, you must first identify them correctly. Hence, here, we will talk about the appearance and habit of these tiny bugs along with their images to help you detect your new annoying guest. After that, I will direct you to specific articles to get rid of your tiny white bug. if you are ready, let’s get going.

Tiny White Bugs in Houseplant Soil: Root Aphids 

If you are an experienced house gardener, you are familiar with aphids and spot them on the foliar part of your houseplant. Although, you may not notice root aphids because you cannot see them. you just see a weak plant with wilting and yellowing symptoms that won’t be solved by using fertilizers.

In this situation, you should remove your potted plant from the soil and check the roots. Below you can see an infested root to aphids.

Now, grab your magnifying glass to watch their appearance in close. You will see:

• They have a pear-like body
• You may find them in various colours such as white, yellow, red, green, brown and black.
• Most of the root aphids are wingless.
• They may secrete a white woolly, waxy and fluffy cover on the roots.

If root aphids are the annoying guest of your houseplant, read “Where Do Root Aphids Come From in Houseplants + Get Rid of Them”.

Tiny white larva of Fungus gnats in houseplant soil

If you spot a lot of tiny black fliers around your houseplant, they may be Fungus gnats and you should consider their white harmful larva in your houseplant’s soil. You can see this black tiny flier and its white larva below.

As you can see in the above image, the adult fliers are small with narrow legs, large segmented antennae and light grey wings. They are similar to tiny mosquitoes.

Their harmful whitish larva lives inside the soil and is about 6mm long. They have a semi-transparent body with a black head.

The larva of Fungus gnats feed off roots and infested roots will fail to absorb water and nutrition. Hence your plant will show the symptoms of wilting, yellowing and poor growth.

If you want to know how to get rid of Fungus gnats easily read “What are black small gnats in houseplants and how to kill?”.

Tiny White Bugs in Houseplant Soil: Houseplant springtails 

You may spot tiny springtails that are crawling on the soil of your houseplant, especially after watering. See their image below.

As you saw above, springtails are very small bugs in various colours from white to black. The wonderful thing about them is they can easily disappear! They have a long spring-like leg behind their abandum that helps to jump suddenly. Hence some people call them “snow fleas” too.

Springtails are your friend in gardening; however, some people can stand them and ask me to show ways to get rid of them. please read “Tiny White Jumping Bugs in Houseplant Soil: Springtails” to tell you all things about them.

Tiny White Isopod Bugs (Pill Bugs) in your Houseplant’s Soil

If you are afraid of spotting bugs with ancient and awful looks in the soil of your houseplant, as you can see in the below picture, don’t worry about them, they are harmless tiny bugs that can be beneficial for your houseplant.

If you are interested to know more about Isopods (Pill bugs) please read “How to Get Rid of Tiny Grey bugs in houseplant soil? Isopods (pill bugs)”.

Tiny white Bugs in Houseplant Soil: Mealybugs on Roots

You may see mealy bugs on your houseplant’s leaves or stems like spreading talcum powder on them. but you may be wondering if you know some of the mealy bugs live on the plants ‘roots inside the soil.

Although you cannot see them until remove the potted plant from the soil and watch the roots, you can see the symptoms of root infestation as yellowing, wilting and decline.

As you can see in the below image, root mealybugs are similar to foliar ones but smaller. They secrete a white cottony substance on roots.

If root mealybugs are tiny white culprits in your houseplant’s soil, read “Tiny White Dots in Houseplant Soil: root mealybugs.”

Conclusion

Now you detected the five common tiny white bugs in your houseplant including Root Aphids, Fungus gnats, Springtails, Isopods and Root mealybugs (root scales). Which one was the culprit in your indoor plant? Could you identify it by its image and symptoms? Was this article helpful? Have you spotted tiny white bugs in your houseplant soil that is not mentioned here? Please tell us about your idea and experience below this page.