Fungus gnat experiment #569

FmSwayze said:

Are still sourcing your medium from the same place?

Click to expand...

Good question. Yes I do. When I was trying other methods to rid myself of gnats I would soak the new soil with BTI when fresh out of the bag and into the pots. I would do this every 3rd feed for 2 months straight. I tried doing this at the same time I would do all my other rooms/tents to see if I could kill them all at once.

#1 - They never all died
#2 - They never stopped coming back

So here I am trying different experiments to keep them out of my pots. I have many pots and many tents. I keep explaining to the BTI advertisers that I do not have a small scale grow and to stop giving me advice I didn't ask for.

But of course the know it alls come back with their 3 plant gardens and their infinite wisdom of the universe and say they are right and I am wrong.

Do you have a journal on here?

I had the little flies before a vacuum cleaner is a good tool one with a long pole ..shake the pot if any flies pop up hoover them up
I took about an inch of my soil off with the vacuum
You defo wanna target top of the soil

So far so good. Time will tell.

Experiment # 569 has failed. Holes were too big on the mesh and that was the smallest screen I could find. Bugs partied in the bottom of my pots again. But I did not give up.

I started searching for a small mesh that worked for doing bubble hash. I figured there had to be some mesh that I could use to wrap around my pots. I did a search for 200 micron mesh and bubble hash mesh. After about 10 minutes I found something I've never seen before.

Mesh bags for paint cans.

Experiment # 570 began.

I found mesh bags for 1, 2 and 5 gallon paint cans. I ordered a bunch of the 2 gallon ones and crossed my fingers. The paint bags have an elastic top that holds tight to the sides of the pot. A few pics of how they cover the pots :





I put them on the already infested pots and it works like a charm. They can't get back in, and they can't get out as well. They all wind up going back to the top of the soil. (The ones that got out during installation) I then spray my IPM on the top of the soil, feed the plants, and let water drown the rest of them on the bottom.

There is no escape. Death to bugs making homes in my pots.

These things are reusable and will last quite a while. They cost less than $1 each and are totally worth it for solving my problem with using pesticides. I will be using an IPM tho from now on even before I drop my clones in soil. The bugs are coming from my Terracraft soil bags so I will start using IPM right off the bat on all new soil when I fill up the pots.

I will kill any eggs before they hatch and if they do hatch they wont make homes in the bottom of my pots anymore. I like the IPM because it kills any mold or fungus development on my clones and soil. The IPM plus the bags will hopefully solve the bug issues. I'll give this 2 weeks before updating.

Small update. The bugs are freaking out. They are a lot smarter than I thought. They are trying to get out by the elastic part. They fail. The ones on the outside are trying to hook up with the ones on the inside. Easy kills with the sprayer.

I've noticed a huge decline in the cloud that comes out when opening the tent. At least 50% in 2 days. At this rate they may be gone in a week or 2. It is much easier to deal with the bugs on top of the soil than the ones hiding in all the holes on the bottom.

I found a huge cemetery of gnats in the rear back corners of my tent. No idea why they went their to die but it made me smile.

Have you tried any deterrents in addition to this physical barrier, like cinnamon or neem seed meal? Just curious