Teeny bugs in soil

Hi all :)

I have quite a few houseplants on some lit, ventilated shelving for the winter. I noticed I had fungus gnats and have been watering once a week with 1:4 (peroxide:water) for two weeks now, in addition to fly paper to snag any buzzing around. Happy to say it's working, and I only plan on one more peroxide treatment just to be sure there are no more larvae about to hatch and recolonize my plants!

Here's my dilemma, upon inspecting the pots yesterday, I noticed teeny tiny light colored bugs on the surface of the potting mix. So small you can barely see them, too small for me to distinguish how many legs, if they have antennae, etc. They are not on the plant itself, mainly in the soil. And when I blew on the soil, I noticed it quickly retreated underground! I hope these little buggers are not eating my roots! Anyone know what they could be? And more importantly, how to get rid of them?? Appreciate any help, thanks!

Go buy a package of "Mosquito dunks" at the garden center. Put one quarter of one in your watering can. This will kill the larvae in the soil and stop future generations. Use sticky traps and manually kill the adults.

The tiny bugs may be soil mites or springtails. Neither will harm the plant. Moist organic soil is a favorite of theirs.

Tommy thanks so much for the response :)

I scooped a few of the little buggers out with a teaspoon earlier and snapped some pics. Looks like I have 2 different kinds of bugs in my soil. Went to the web and compared my terrible quality pics with your suggestions and lo and behold the two you mentioned seem to fit!

Also, I've already tried the BT dunks you advised (for fungus gnats!! I know, I have serious bug infestation huh??). I did 4 rounds of treated water, and they just laughed at me! Well last week I did a 4:1 hydrogen peroxide:water mix and set a few glue traps around. They are all but gone (the fungus gnats, not these two). Plants are real thirsty looking now so gonna do one more blast of HP/water. Hope that does the trick!

Back to the springtails and soil mites, have you ever heard of anyone having success with an insecticide aimed at these? If so, I'd love to know the product. I'm willing to try anything, really don't want these bugs finding my seedlings I just started!

Oops I forgot the pics! I know, they really are bad quality. These things are super tiny, like almost microscopic! Pic #1 and #4 show what I think is the springtail. The others show the mite(?)

The main way is to try to keep the soil DRIER if possible. They love moist organic matter. Try reading the insects killed list on some systemic insecticides and Neem oil. Both of those bugs do little damage to houseplants, they're more annoying than anything.

Yes very annoying when they buzz up my nose! The fungus gnats are my main concern now. Even starving my plants of water to the point of wilting up, the gnats are still there. If the other ones aren't harmful they can stay but the gnats are making me crazy..