F*&^kin Fungus Gnats
- Thread starter loolagigi
- Start date
i tried organacide a few times and its like the plants are laughing at me. what do i do, there getting a lot worse.
mrskitz
Well-Known Member
GroWell > Fungus Gnat Off get that and youll have the last laugh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,peace
loolagigi
Well-Known Member
whats the worst the gnats can do?
Celestial
Well-Known Member
I think that a part of treating the problem has to be to examine your reason for infestation in the first place otherwise the problem is likely to just occur again. Fungus gnats are attracted to damp conditions and organic materials so if you're growing in soil particularly, you might want to let the plants dry out a bit more and maybe look at using a different type of soil or covering the top layer with some kind of inert material. If you are intaking air from outdoors check the area outside around it and make sure that it is not around other outdoor vegitation which is also infested. You should also look at what kind of ventilation and air movement you have in the area as stagnant conditions favour pests. Removing all your plants from the area and giving the place a thorough clean may also be beneficial. A good long-term solution, particulary if you find yourself prone to infestation or your infestation is particularly bad, may be to invest in some nemotydes such as hypoaspis miles, which are also less risky to your plants than an insecticide based product
loolagigi
Well-Known Member
i just did a little research, and could buy a gnat killer from my hydro store for like 25$ or mosquito dunks, i read to submerge them in water for a day and then water your plants with the water, it kills larve, up to 30 days. hme depot or lowes has them, can anyone back this up?
BigBudBalls
Well-Known Member
I have a couple of gnats in the room. At the rate they are eating the leaves (and this is over 3 months) It would take them 2 months to eat a full medium fan leave. I am concerned, but not anal about it. If the population grows, i'll deal with it.
Celestial
Well-Known Member
Not sure why you quoted my message in this post. Any kind of insectitcide would potentially work but as I pointed out, your approach to remedying the situation should include eliminating the infestation you already have and PREVENTING it from reocccuring otherwise you might find yourself fighting a losing battle.
loolagigi
Well-Known Member
i quoted because i would like more of your input, i think that my soil is the caper. its a home depot mix with perlite ans such, maybe next grow ill go with ff soil, or just hydro.
Celestial
Well-Known Member
The more organic material your soil contains (eg. a high percentage of peat moss) and the wetter it is, the more likely it is to attract fungus gnats. Are you allowing soil to dry out between waterings? It might be worthwhile when treating the infestation with an insecticide to also place an 1" layer of some kind of material like clean sand (try playsand made for kids sandpits) or pure perlite/vermiculite on top of the soil as these bugs live and breed in the top layer of the soil and and as they favour organic materials, they do not like living in inert materials such as this. If you plan to repot your plants any time in the future, you should try to carefully remove as much of the current soil as possible, especially the top layers and dispose of it and use new pots that are clean. Be aware that they easily spread from pot to pot so you should tackle all pots at once and expect that any new plants you introduce to the area are likely to also become infected.
As I said to you eariier, the fact that you already have an infestation shows that your grow area is vulnerable to such an attack. Trying to establish the cause of this problem and keeping the area generally clean and sterile will go a long way to fixing your problem and preventing it from reoccuring. In particular I would pay attention to any water or soil spills which might be producing a damp and unhealthy atmosphere - when you water your plants do you have some kind of dish underneath to collect the overflow and if so, do you allow it to sit and stagnate? If you have your box lined (eg with mylar), it may even be worth removing the lining and replacing it to ensure more clean conditions.
This kind of bug isn't the worst you could get and a lot of gardeners consider them to be fairly harmless so I woudn't panic. On the other hand, it isn't great to allow them to continue to breed and multiply so I think it is good that you want to treat the problem. You should be prepared to put in a bit of effort however, beyond just treating the existing plants with some kind of insecitcide.
loolagigi
Well-Known Member
just prior to reading the last post i placed a 1/2" layer of miracle grow perlite to the tops on the containers, i dont think the flys and larva will like that. i will try to water lass, and i will be repotting in a month or so, so clean pots...i get it.....thanks guys
I tried the mosquito dunks (which have BTi in them) and that did seem to help. If you can find some Gnatrol (also has BTi ... some hydro shops have it or something similar) that worked better for me, but maybe because it was easier to get a correct dose. I doubled their recommended conecntration and drenched the soil on two successive waterings, and used flypaper to catch many of the flying adults (this didn't work all that well, but did catch some of them). I no longer have any gnats and its been 9 days since the last drench. I'm convinced they originated from dormant eggs in the potting soil which apparently is very common. Best to treat the soil with BTi before planting or transplanting if you can't cook it to sterilize beforehand.
loolagigi
Well-Known Member
i am going to try the dunks, do i acually water my soil with it as a water? or a spray? or does it just sit in my room in a seperate container?
I don't know what size "dunk" you have, but these things can usually treat many gallons of water so you may want to break open the package and use only 1/4 of it (or so). If you have a 5 gallon bucket just fill it with water and drop a dunk into it and let it sit overnight. Give it a good stir the next day and water your plants with it normally, making sure to drench the soil completely and get some runoff from the pots. Wear rubber gloves and don't touch the contents of the packages or the treated water!
You can also sprinkle the contents of a dunk on the top of your soil like you'd salt a steak (again, wear a rubber glove), then water heavily. I don't think this would work as well as treating the water beforehand, but if you have only one pot or a few small pots and don't need an entire dunk it might do the trick. May have to repeat for the next watering to get all the larvae. The key is to get the BTi distributed throughout the soil from top to bottom to kill all larvae.
I've found that when using soil, adding some water to it and sticking it in the microwave on high for about a minute or two will kill just about anything living in the soil including larvae. Just be careful as the soil will be super hot and steaming when it's done. Just let it cool (I put mine in the freezer for about 15-20 min.) and your soil is good to go. As one would expect, this method won't help you at this point but is great at the start of a grow to prevent bugs.
loolagigi
Well-Known Member
thats awesome thanks