I got this rubber tree a few months ago.


Well it is doing great new leaves are coming out and everything. Well last night I noticed that there are these tiny centipede looking bugs in the soil! I have never had this in any of my other plants. So what the heck is it and how do I get them out? Will they kill my plant?
I couldnt find a picture of it?

Don't know anything about rubber trees sorry. But with the title showing up on the board the way it did I just had to look in. Good luck getting rid of the pests.

Haha thanks anyways tkhooper.
Yeah these little bugs are weird looking. They are kind of big? I want them gone!

i had a few plants with centipedy looking bugs. i got rid of the dirt in the pot and used new fresh soil. haven't seen the buggers since.

They will not damage your plant, so you can safely ignore them as long as they don't gross you out!

If they do, then plunge the pot up to its rim in a tub full of water and leave it there for about 20-30 minutes. This will cause the critters to abandon ship in search of air.

Well what I did was I spooned them out the ones that were on the top I havent checked again to see if there are more but maybe that did it?

Hi, I'm new here! I was reading the forums looking for advice on some pesky bugs when I read that Smh023 had cenipede looking bugs in her soil on her rubber tree. I have the same problem except it's not in my rubber tree but a couple of tropical plants that I have. I was curious if you had ever gotten rid of them and what exactly did you do. Thanks in advance.

Are they milipedes? Black color, smaller than centipedes and curls up when you touch them?

I really dunno what it is exactly. They look like centipedes. I just googled milipedes but I'm not sure it's that. The worms are yellowish have lots of legs and I seen one that was about an inch long. I really need to get rid of them, if it just so happens to be a centipede I don't need them in my house with a 10 month old. I think I am going to repot them tomorrow to see if that helps. If it don't guess I'll be getting rid of my plants...which I really don't want to. But just can't have them worms in my house...so I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas to get rid of them....

Hi Deana,

The critters in the soil will not harm your baby, but I understand your desire to get rid of them. Repotting may get rid of the critters, but it may also destroy the plant.

Read my previous post to learn how to get rid of them.

I had millipedes in my weeping fig for awhile. I had to repot a couple of times to get rid of them. When I repotted the second time I thoroughly rinsed the roots (enough that I thought I was getting the job done, but not enough that I was going to kill my ficus) and I used a pesticide to treat the soil. With a ten-month-old might skip the last step. The pesticide was nasty stuff with many warnings on the label. Still, I'd recommend getting rid of as much of the original dirt from the root ball as possible to try to get rid of the bugs and their eggs at the same time.

With all due respect to Erinne, I am going to caution against soil replacement. It is a very drastic and unnecessary step. The risk of losing the plant from the shock of soil replacement is far greater than any damage that can be done by some soil-borne pests.

Potent pesticides (which I do not recommend) will kill the critters without having to also change the soil.