Spider mites

I heard from several sources that Calatheas were magnets for spider mites. I have about 10 and all are doing great, except one, a yellow fusion, it's going downhill fast!

On closer inspection with a magnifying glass and torch you can see the telltale ultra fine webbing and the tiny tiny mites, lots of them. No wonder my yellow fusion is looking so bad.

I looked into efficient ways of getting rid of them and one "mixture" I came across was vodka and water with a bit of washing up liquid. Shake up, put in a spray bottle and douse the tops, and undersides of the leaves. Wipe the leaves, and repeat if necessary.

I haven't done it yet, I wanted to run it past you guys first. I have all the ingredients, I just need the thumbs up! If this mix isn't suitable what other DIY type mixtures can I use? Obviously all my other Calatheas will need checking now too, even though they all seem healthy.

 

I tried meths, (cant waste vodka), and water once and they came back for more.
It will probably knock them back for a few weeks but unless you kill the eggs its an ongoing battle.

If you dont want to use chemicals you could try predators, but that is expensive and something you need to keep doing.

 

When our Fuchsias were that infected we used a typical spray like BugClear Ultra to knock them out, though the plant will probably look miserable for some weeks.

Once done, to catch any hatchlings as @pete mentions, we treated all plants with a weekly spray of a natural product like SB Invigorator, available as a hand spray or a concentrate bottle , around £12 - worked for all our greenhouse plants that year on the mites and other typical bugs.