Here’s some info you may find helpful
The best defense against spider mites is a combined approach of environmental control, biological predators, and organic sprays. Because spider mites reproduce rapidly and quickly develop immunity to chemical pesticides, relying on a single spray will not work.
Use this multi-layered strategy to protect your crop:
- Optimize the Environment (The Best Prevention)
- Lower the Temperature: Keep your grow room between 68°F and 75°F (20°C–24°C). Mites thrive and reproduce twice as fast in heat above 80°F.
- Raise the Humidity: Maintain relative humidity (RH) around 55% to 60% during vegetative growth. Mites hate moisture and prefer dry air.
- Increase Airflow: Set up oscillating fans to create a constant breeze. Strong airflow physically disrupts the mites and prevents them from anchoring their webs.
- Deploy Biological Warfare (Beneficial Insects)
- Predatory Mites (Phytoseiulus persimilis): These are the most effective cure. They eat adult spider mites, nymphs, and eggs, completely ignoring the plant.
- Predatory Mites (Neoseiulus californicus): Best used for prevention. They survive longer when pest populations are low and tolerate higher temperatures.
- Ladybugs: Highly effective general predators that actively hunt down colonies on fan leaves.
- Apply Contact Sprays (Knockdown Treatments)
- Horticultural Oils & Neem Oil: Mix pure neem oil with warm water and a few drops of organic dish soap. Spray the undersides of the leaves thoroughly during the dark cycle to avoid light burn.
- Insecticidal Soaps: Potassium salts of fatty acids break down the mite’s outer shell, causing them to dehydrate.
- Pure Water Blast: For outdoor plants, use a sharp, pressurized spray of clean water to physically blast the mites and webs off the foliage.
- Maintain Strict Hygiene Protocol
- Quarantine New Plants: Never bring clones or outside plants directly into your main grow room without isolating them for 14 days.
- Change Your Clothes: If you walk outdoors or visit another garden, change your shirt and pants before entering your indoor grow space.
- Clean the Room: Between harvests, scrub the entire grow tent or room with a 10% bleach solution or hydrogen peroxide
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Check the bottom of affected leaves, there will be some crawling around if you have them, and I’m afraid one of the pics definitely looks like it. They don’t usually turn spots brown though, usually white specks from bites. Call mag will fix them if it’s calcium deficiency, if mites, spray every 3 days with fresh Jacks Deadbug for two weeks and it will eliminate them. Be sure and drench whole plant and even media surfaces, especially under leaves and in cracks around nodes. They aren’t fun, but can be eradicated.
If it’s mites, you will need to sanitize the grow area as well.
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Your IPM schedule (Spinosad + Hypochlorous + Dr. Zymes every 3 days) is already aggressive and solid for mites. Dr. Zymes is legit against two spotted spider mites, so if mites were the culprit you’d likely have seen webbing, moving specks under a jewlers loupe, or more widespread damage by now.
Calcium is immobile. Deficiencies always hit new growth and upper leaves first (exactly like you are seeing). Spider mites usually start lower or spread from undersides and show tiny pale dots before turning the whole leaf rusty.
Essentially rust spots wo/yellowing veins or webbing says Calcium lockout in hydro systems. How much calmag are you using and whats your ph looking like? Getting above 6.0ph can cause this.
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I would think you be able to find some webbing at this point if it was spider mites.
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It doesn’t fit spider mites. You’d see more white spots. Looks like healed Ca spots where it was in def but was fixed and now scarred. Does it appear to be spreading? Pattern suggests spray damage to me most.
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Taken with my cellphone. You dont need a magnifier to see spider mites and their eggs or their webbing
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Boy am I hoping this is the case! Thanks to you and @plumbdand and the rest for chiming in I wont be stressing too bad!
I do use a fogger (>5 micron droplet size) to apply HOCl but not the spinosad or zymes. I’m also reducing the rate I use the Jack’s to about 45% for my target EC of 1.2
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Appreciate this visual I definitely didnt see any of this, and my eyes are still decent yet 
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I burned a plant once using Hypochlorous acid. The leaves looked kinda like yours only worse.
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I do 250ppm or 125ppm concentration so far it’s been okay. I’m thinking this might be from the other sprays since it’s not being fogged at that low droplet size to evaporate on contact. Just using regular spray bottles for the spinosad and zymes. Or maybe it could be calcium deficiency.. I’m not sure
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Dr Zymes shouldn’t do that at any size droplet, unless you are spraying with the lights on or your not adjusting ph when mixing it.
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I remove the plant from under the light for abt 30min-1 hour after spraying before reintroducing it but have NOT been pH adjusting the water when adding Zymes so good to know 

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30 minutes isn’t long enough I would spray at lights out.
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I appreciate that and will do exactly that next time
its IPM day today actually. So lights out, they’re gettin Zymes
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How often are you spraying and what is the reason
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Spraying every 3 days as preventative to try to stop any infestation from taking hold. Had very minor dmg on this plant months ago and treated it with just Spinosad and stopped occurring. It looked more like the silvery scrapes thrips leave behind. Now I do
Day 1: HOCl 250ppm
Day4: Spinosad
Day7: Zyme’s.
Zoomed in this picture and wondering if this is a thrip…
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Could be a thrip, usually fond them on the underside of the leaf
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Are you finding black spots? I had them bad last winter.
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Yes, really small. Smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. Lol
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