Little black flying bugs!!

Omg man i opened my tent today and i saw a bunch of little black fly's flying around! i smashed as many as i could and then i watered the pots and in the bottom tray i noticed tons of little white larva in the tray floating in the excess water!!! :/ Wut can i do to get rid of these things!!! i used some old potting soil so i think that was my problem! but please give me a solution to kill all these bugs!

i got almost the same problem .___. Help!!!!

get rid of the excess water to start with bro ... could be some of the cause of your problem (overwatering draws nasty critters)

happy growin

Fungus Gnats.

I use small dishes of wine vinegar or white vinegar to control them. they will fly righ into the vinegar and drown themselves.

Fungus gnats feed of decaying organic material to which fungi has begun to grow on. wipe down all surfaces with white vinegar. you must make sure your soil dries out to around the top inch of soil in between waterings and keep the surface cultivated (broken up and loose) in your containers or this will keep on occuring.

So to recap what I just said:

1) clean out your grow areas of all excess organic material such as dead leaves.

2) wipe down all surfaces such as pots, floors, and walls with white vinegar and taking extreme care not to get any on the plants.

3) set out vinegar traps for the little buggers.


For preventative purposes, allow your soil to properly dry out between waterings. The top inch should be dry before another watering as a general rule and keep the surface of the soil cultivated and clean of excess organic material.

Other than contaminating your buds with their little bodies, they pose no significant risk to your plants.

wow thanks bro i'll try wut u said right now!!

Also you could add sticky traps for a bit to catch the adults as they emerge.

Any yellow colored traps work very well.

Fungus gnats have a short life cyle so it is easy to break. and what I outlined above has worked very well and chemical free.

Sounds shitty man, good luck with that, I don't have the problem but I was on track to getting it, thanks for the heads up post. Rep+

alright then thanks bro! Rep+

i just discovered i had fungus gnats and read an old trick to sprinkle cinnamon on the soil and kill the fungus, which in turn will kill the gnats.
i tried it just last night. apparently it causes no damage to the plants and mmmm my box smells good
but its still so soon, ill be seeing what happens with that. no gnats so far.

If fungus gnats are persistent, you can also buy nematodes (microscopic worms). They will eliminate gnats in your potting medium at the egg /larval stage. The amounts you buy will be more than the average grow room can use so you can use it to treat your property around the grow room(s) and further buffer yourself from reinfestation.

i got some new stuff its an eye dropper.. and it gets rid of them u put drops into ur water.. and feed.. and or water.. and this gets rid of em.. i use it and the yellow stickys to get the older ones.. there annoying.. but its hard to prevent wen u have tons of plants.

wow let me no if the cinnamon works! if so i'll use that next time

Ok well i wiped everything down and placed out 3 little bowls of white vinegar and am waiting to see wut happens!

I had these on my first soil grow and its an easy fix!

Just go to your local home improvement shop and pick up a bag of playground sand and put a layer on top of the soil about 1/2" to 1" thick. The only thing that sucks is you have to shovel sand out of the way every time you water. For my situation the gnats were gone in about 3-5 days. Apparently the little fuckers don't have the ability to crawl through sand, so they essentially get trapped and die.

As I did some reading alot of the cheap soil mixes from the stores already have the gnat larvae inside of the soil but it takes the right combination of over watering and temps to hatch the larvae. Once a couple pop its a clusterfuck from there.

Good Luck and happy growing!

yellow sticky paper will catch the adults. azamax will get rid of them its like 20$ there are soil drench directions in the box. you just do a flush with it. sand on top is a good way to stop them cut powder for fleas might work. the best way is to run dryer soil. I know fox farms has a lot gnats in it. after you think they are gone cut a potato into slices and lay it on top of the soil if you have larvae they will end up under the potato slice after a few days.

Hey guys,

This is my first post so I thought I'd make it useful.

To get rid of fungus gnats (or even root aphids) you want to use a product that contains imidacloprid. I use bayer tree & shrub, it has 1.47% imdiacloprid. I've effectively used it in one of my grows and on a couple of friends grows. I use 12ml/gal, there's a lot of in the bottle guys so don't be shy to use 10-15ml/gal!

Here's some info off wiki: Imidacloprid is a nicotine-based, systemic insecticide, which acts as a neurotoxin and belongs to a class of chemicals called the neonicotinoids.

I've never used it in flower as I'd assume it wouldn't be recommended but if you're still in veg it shouldn't be a problem. I can post a picture of the exact product I use if that's within forum rules?

top dressing of crushed mosquito dunks, dry soil, and a perlite mulch. and flypaper, with a fan aimed at it. its a hard world for gnats in my box.