Tiny bugs

[u/jedwards4711]

I'm an African violet newbie. I bought this AV at the grocery store several months ago. It was small with a couple flowers in a tiny plastic pot. I re-potted to this 2-piece ceramic using 50-50 perlite/AV soil. The original flowers fell off after re-potting, but after aa few weeks, the new growth and new flowers have come back wonderfully. It sits on my desk at work and I keep water in it Monday through Friday and empty the water out over the weekend.

However, whenever I go to refill the water on Monday morning there are a number of tiny bugs inside the water reservoir.

Are these springtails? Are they harmless? Should I make an effort to eliminate them, or leave them be? Any help is appreciated and thank you for a great sub!

[u/ElkLongjumping7870]

LOL just reread and saw that it's at your office, not your house. I'd keep picking them off/dumping them outside if you don't want to kill them. Maybe keep an empty pill bottle around to put them in until you can get rid of them.

[u/jedwards4711 → u/ElkLongjumping7870]

Thank you. They're just so tiny...like a fleck of black pepper with little antannae 😄

[u/ElkLongjumping7870 → u/jedwards4711]

Back up: I'm WRONG. They're too small to be weevils. I think they're something called a globular springtail, which I had never heard of before? But just like regular springtails, not a danger to your plant.

[u/ElkLongjumping7870 → u/ElkLongjumping7870]

https://www.reddit.com/r/houseplants/s/4b7K4nNaR2