Ladybugs (Hippodamia convergens) eat over 5,000 Aphids and other soft-bodied pests during their one-year lifetime.
Actually you can get them to breed I added some marigolds they need flowers for necture. I tried preditor mites and they never made the shipping and the company did not warranty it. So I went with a diffrent company and so far I am happy.
Are you saying you personally got them to breed? Everything I have every read says you cannot get them to breed in a tent (or even a greenhouse)... - most all lady bugs bred for the ag industry must migrate before breeding. Straight up will not even attempt to breed even if you could get everything else perfect. The problem with lady bugs is that they do not eat most of the eggs and will often even skip over smaller mites. Lady bug larvae work great against mites but adults will never completely get rid of a population. Aphids are magnitudes larger than a spider mite and eggs are much smaller than mites.
Mite destroyer (best natural predator of mites)
Mite destroyer on a leaf (they are tiny!)
Mite destroyer compared to eggs (eggs are TINY!) The large clear one is an aphid egg, the tiny tiny yellow one is around the size of a mite egg.
Thanks for all the info people. I'm literally sleeping in borax every night so I'm not too worried about the toxicity on humans. I would of course never use it during flowering as inhaling it definitely isn't great for you. I generally use Azamax and am not going to stop, just wondering what other organic alternatives I have. Seems like a great preventative for large areas.