What is this bug... its weird and there are lots.

It seems to be a small gnat of sorts that does not feed on foliage they live on the surface of the soil they fly a little but seem to spend alot of time on the soil gound they look black have clear wing and are really small. Have let them go awhile, I tried to kill them with a organic homemade spray no effect now its just annoying. I will buy a decent pesticide when I can here soon. But are they harmful to plants, I cant tell or know .. but they do not appear damaged... or am I wrong.

I have no idea but we had some catnip growing in a tray on the living room windowsill and my partner notice some little flies coming out of it, i picked it up and they started to swarm kind of so i threw it out the door. when it hit the ground there were hundreds of the buggers! wierd, Xfiles like insects if ya ask me!

soundz like spider mite. you need to get it sorted my friend

Put a couple inches of sand on the top of your soil so they don't have a breeding ground and see what happens before you use pesticides on your plants.

They are fungus gnats. Follow blzbob's advice with the sand layer, which will kill the larvae as they emerge (make sure you use sharp sand, aka builder's sand). You can also employ sticky fly traps to kill off the adult flies that remain.

If you only have a few plants, you can get rid of fungus gnats by simply not watering for a while. They feed off moist soil, and will die of starvation long before your plant suffers from underwatering.

Don't just leave them, as they will damage your root system if left unchecked.

Fungus knats are a bitch. Use sticky cards to catch the fliers so they can't lay eggs, sand can help if its early but you have to kill all the larvae that are in the soil. Just waiting for soil to dry out does not kill all the fungus knats or the eggs.

Nematodes are the best thing to use, they will live in your soil and eat and fungus knat larvae or any other pests or burrowers in your soil. They should have some at your local grow shop.

BCtrippin said:

Just waiting for soil to dry out does not kill all the fungus knats or the eggs.

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Whilst not a guaranteed method, I can tell you from personal experience that simply drying out the soil may be enough to rid yourself of gnats.

I recently had a small infestation in my mother plant room, which only had 3 plants in at the time. With a week to go before I could get any money to treat them, I had no choice but to simply allow the soil to dry, in an effort to slow down the gnat incursion. By the time I had the money to treat the problem, the gnats were all dead, and there was no sign of movement in the soil.

That was a couple of months ago, and they are still in the clear now, with no extra work from me.


The wiki page on fungus gnats says this:

In houseplants the presence of fungus gnats may indicate overwatering. They may be feeding on roots that have sat in drain water too long and are rotting or may be attracted to fungus growing in saturated top soil. Typically draining the excess water from the plants drain pan and allowing the soil to dry will eliminate them.

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I'm not trying to argue with you, just stating a bit of personal experience. Gnats will die very quickly if they are denied access to moist soil.

Nocturn3 said:

I'm not trying to argue with you, just stating a bit of personal experience. Gnats will die very quickly if they are denied access to moist soil.

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I agree with you. It depends how bad the infestation is though. I know from my experience with some soils it wont be able to get dry enough to kill all the knats larvae down in the bottom 1/3 of the soil without damaging the plant.

A lot of houseplants only need to be watered once or twice a month too. Its harder to go a long time without watering your babies.

It is a good tip though. Another one of the many reasons why you should never ever over water..