FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

About a month ago I bought a couple plants from:
http://www.carnivorousplantnursery.com
I noticed pests the day after I got them and have ever since then been fighting multiple pests on the plants. Discovering more as time goes on. I have never had any pests in my collection at any point, so I did not recognize the problem at first sight.
On the two plants I bought there, both north american pitcher plants. The pests include:
Spider mites
Scale
A whole bunch of small snails

What should I do to treat them? Are the plants saveable? Also, Is it appropriate for me to contact the seller and ask for a refund or exchange? I notified him of the scale, because thats what I noticed first. He just replied, "Thanks for the heads up."
Any suggestions, ideas?
Thanks in advance for any responses.

An effective treatment for the spider mites and scale is acephate, which begins to work immediately and usually kills scale in 1-3 days. The spider mites are also affected by acephate (which is a systemic and therefore more effective in all areas of the plant including places some insects hide and evade superficial insecticides) but usually require an additional insecticide, a specific miticide, to eradicate them completely. Both can be sprayed in the same mixture at the same time.

The snails may also be poisoned and killed by the acephate.

There are many references to acephate here at the FlytrapCare Forum, including links to sources in the U.S. (including doyourownpestcontrol.com)

Spray them soon. Spider mites and scale can become very destructive very quickly, and multiply as quickly.

At least as far as the scale goes, a very similar thing just happened to me, and if you can find some acephate it'll take care of that problem. Here's my post:

http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/help- ... t9331.html

on the second page of that post Steve recommends a specific miticide as well.

Hah Steve got to you first! Definitely take his advice!

http://www.defenders.co.uk/pest-solutio ... ntrol.html

Id like to add the above link which ive tried in the past (not on or around carnivorous plants i should add)

There is another type of non problematic to plants mite which the above linked company sells, its in UK but the red spider mite eating mites* must be also available in USA id have thought.
They also have many other organic remedies on site.

*Full indepth info on them in link too.

Thanks for all your responses! Jaws, thanks for bringing up natural pest control alternatives. Does anyone here have any more info on using organic/natural pest controls on carnivorous plants? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated, as I live in a small, fairly unventilated apartment and its too cold to sick the plants with the pesticide on them outside.

Ethologist wrote:Does anyone here have any more info on using organic/natural pest controls on carnivorous plants?

Neem oil is an organic alternative. I've never used it, but many growers do. I don't know how much it smells. If you do a search for neem oil here on the forums, you'll find quite a few posts on it.

Thank you everyone for your responses! Matt, I checked out Neem oil on this forum and just placed an order for some. Will post my experience in using it and keep everyone posted with its efficacy. Thanks for the suggestion!

Where did you get it from?

I bought it off of amazon.com. I tried to buy something similar to what some people use on this forum. But I also needed to find it cheap and get it quickly. So I purchased it for $13.75 from amazon with free 2 day shipping. Here is the link to the exact product:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000A0 ... os_product

As for mentioning it to the seller. Is it worth it? Will I only annoy him and not get any compensation for getting heavily infested plants? Is this typically acceptable to recieve plants in this condition? I just want to know all this for my future interactions. I don't want to be taken a fool for, nor do I want to place unwarranted demands on sellers. I spent nearly $30 on these two plants. They are a S. pupurea and S. psittacina.

No, in no way is it typical to receive plants like this . I would badger the seller, and make sure to let him know you had to buy some pest control for it within a week or 2.
I think that the neem, you mix it with water... Can someone confirm/correct?

Ethologist wrote:As for mentioning it to the seller. Is it worth it? Will I only annoy him and not get any compensation for getting heavily infested plants? Is this typically acceptable to recieve plants in this condition? I just want to know all this for my future interactions. I don't want to be taken a fool for, nor do I want to place unwarranted demands on sellers. I spent nearly $30 on these two plants. They are a S. pupurea and S. psittacina.

I'd seriously recommend trying to at least score some of your money back.

I'm by no means a salesperson but my advice would be:

Before you treat the plants for the pests, take photos of them. Get as many photos of the plants and infested areas as possible. If you have any receipts or delivery documents, photograph these as well. If you have any emails that would suffice as proof of purchase (online receipts, invoices etc) then take a screenshot of these (by pressing the Prnt Scr button) and censor out any bank details (you can paste the screenshots into a paint program then edit out your details, then save it to your pictures or something). Compile all these things into one email and explain the situation to the seller. Keep a copy of the email and the attachments you send for yourself.

Make a record of any and all emails between you and the seller while trying to get some form of refund or compensation -- in case, Heaven forbid, something goes wrong and you have to go through it again.

The sooner you send the photos and get the ball rolling, the better. I wish you all the best and I hope you can recover your plants and some of your hard-earned money!

The neem oil seemed to do it. Took a couple applications, but it worked. The parrot pitcher plant, which had got nearly all its new leaf tips chewed off has finally start producing new leaves. Didn't even bother to try and contact the seller about this, I didn't predict him to be receptive and just wanted to avoid it : /
Thanks to everyone for all the responses you provided!

That's great to hear at least! Good thing that the plants made it. The Neem oil killed everything ?