Insect eating pigmentation off plants leaving white patches behind what do I do?

I'm no plant expert but I've been trying to grow some bonsai and 12 of my baby plants have these white patches on their leaves with black dots. I don't know what to do I tried cleaning it with lightly diluted soapy water following advice from someone but its to no use because it keeps coming up.

There's no local gardening expert so I genuinely don't know what to do. I've kept these plants indoors and tried to not overwater them. Please help

 

Closer views needed

 

Hope this is better :)

 

I wonder if this might be the work of an insect that's hiding in the coir during the day and feeding at night. Perhaps the black dots are its excretions. Are the spots always black or are there ones that are clear? I'm thinking the substance may be the plant's sap.

In the same places or elsewhere?

 

Oh the black dots appear only on the white parts. I only monitor the plants every morning and every morning more appear.

I did see a small brown bug crawling on the plant and I picked it off but it was so tiny like a spec of dust. I'm not sure if that's to any use

 

So on the affected leaves you wipe away the black dots and the (black) dots reappear the next morning on the same leaves, in the exact same locations as before?

 

Oh no no aha sorry I wipe away the black dots but the black dots reappear the next morning on a completely different new white patch

 

So the problem is spreading to previously unaffected leaves. It's difficult to imagine the white areas developing so quickly. I don't know what the problem is but I tend to go with my initial hunch on it being an insect because of the black dots. I'm not aware of any plant that has black sap.

 

Okay so if it is your original hunch about it being an insect, would you have any recommendations to get rid of them?

 

Well it's only a hunch. I wouldn't recommend any remedial action until the problem has been confirmed. You might try placing sticky insect strips on top of the coir and see they catch anything. Are all the seedlings growing in one container or multiple containers? If the latter, does the problem appear in all containers?

 

What is a coir I'm fully aware of how daft I sound but I don't know bare minimum about plants.

I placed 12 of these seedlings in one container with 12 cells I was due to move them to a larger container but I don't want to transfer them as they are all "infected".

But thank you for the sticky insect strips I'll give it a go :)

 

Oh, I thought I saw coconut coir (Coir - Wikipedia) in one of the photos. I must have been mistaken.

By the way, what type of plant is this?

 

It's an albizia julibrissin a persian silk tree I must say it's my first ever plant I've ever grown from a seedling. This one along with 4 other kinds of bonsai trees.

I should've started with something easier aha like rhubarb aha

 

Hi so I've noticed my bonsai seedlings were developing white patches with black dots only today did I notice some sort of insect on it. And I don't know what to do or how to get rid of them

 

Difficult to be sure from the photo but they might be thrips: Thrips Management Guidelines--UC IPM.

 

This was originally posted as "Leaves have white patches and black dots". I have merged a new thread into this and given it the new name.

 

Hi @Sylwia Kosecka

@Junglekeeper 's hunch is right; thrips cause localized white or silvery patches and the little black dots are their excrement. Thrips are tiny flying insects that can sometimes be quite annoying, however their damage is usually cosmetic rather than a threat to the plant's survival.

The simplest solution would be to get yellow sticky traps and install them close to your plants. Though thrips fly (for a part of their life cycle), they aren't good flyers, so place the traps at the same height as the plants or lower, not high above the plants. If you only have a small thrips population, sticky traps can be enough to eliminate them.