I was removing three of my orchids from the soaking pail when I noticed small white insects in the water. They're pretty tiny (~1mm?) long oval shapes with many legs wriggling (but they're too small for me to see and count clearly). I've tried looking up images of common orchid pests, but to be honest, I'm not sure that they match anything I've looked up. To my untrained eye, they don't look like fungus fly gnats, or white flies, or mites. For a while I thought they resembled white sowbugs, until I realized sowbugs are supposed to be pretty huge. Can someone tell me what I'm dealing with and how I should get rid of them? Two of my orchids are still in bloom (they were gifts I received this summer!) so I would hate to lose them to this!
My older orchid has lost 2 leaves, but the other two (the new ones) have not shown any signs of stress. The leaves slowly started to yellow, and then broke off very easily while it was still yellow-green. I've run tap water through the roots/bark media, unrealistically hoping it would wash off all the insects. Suffice to say, it didn't work and I can still spot some of the tiny white things wriggling on the bark media.
