I think you're spot on with the thrips. I think the green cleaner is working to an extent but it's not keeping them away. I've never even heard of thrips. Will I see them flying or are they too small to see? I see a lot of gnat looking things flying around the crop. I've never looked at one under a scope.
the eggs you wont see
the larval stage you`ll normally see jumping around in your run out or in the top of the soil
the adult ones fly but I`m sure you get some that just live in the root zone and eat the fuck out of your roots but that happens a few gens in
they are small but the adults and larva can be seen the larva just wriggle and jump the adults are kinda like small fruit fly size sometimes a bit smaller and quite slim, kinda like a mosquito and a small narrow mouth had a baby
We`ve had them for a year or 2 now and a mate had them for years, seeing the larva stage was easy but I only spotted my 1st adults the other day after 2 years of looking for them and that was on an outside grow, so I have yet to actually see an adult one inside yet
but they must be there they just fly, lay eggs on the leaves and then the eggs hatch out eat the leaves drop down to the soil and pupate in the wet/damp areas
Perlite or silica rock or volcanic dust on the top of your soil can help
but from personal experience thrips are a cunt, I`d give them a 7/10 if spider mites are say a 3/10 I mean water or soapy water or neem oil will scare away spider mites
spinosad nukes spider mites but only gets rid of thrips for 1 to 6 months
I use a mixture of tricks and bug killers and such to make it hard for them to get onto my indoor plants
just gotta nuke my flowering beds outside with "ant stop granules" next week actually due to seeing them in there
In the UK we struggle to get nice spinosad products, in the usa there`s captain Jack and montgomery.... here I`ve just found Ant Stop granules 0.2% spinosad, easy to get don`t think too many people in the UK or europe have twigged the ant stop is spinosad based yet.