Started my indoor peppers a month ago. They're doing great but today I noticed tons of tiny black bugs in my drip cups. They aren't on any of the plants and like I said, the plants are thriving. After doing some googling, I'm fairly certain they are springtails. Anyone have these, and are they a threat to my plants? If so, what's a good remedy? Thanks in advance.
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pests Bugs in my drip cups
- Thread starter dontfearthereaper
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Planned on trying some diatomaceous earth as well as letting the soil dry out as much as I can without harming the plants. Rinsed out the drip cups with alcohol to get rid of the ones I can see. We'll see what happens. If anyone has a surefire method, I'd love to hear about it.
I don't believe it's fungus gnats. These things are little black bugs clustered up and they jump around. I've read that they are harmless but the plants that have a ton in the drip cups have been showing signs of stress (some leaf curling on the edges and top leaves wilting in the evening). I assume the same methods to control fungus gnats could be applied here. Just want to avoid extreme measures that could harm the plants.
Okay, I had some time this evening so I did some heavy-duty inspecting. I use Solo cups, doubled up with drip holes cut in the main cup and the bottom cup serves as rhe drip container. Started digging around in each container's potting mix and saw hundreds of tiny eggs. Also, after being in the grow room a while I saw a handful of gnats crawling out of some of the cups. Looking closely into the drip cups also revealed two different insects, the springtails and what I realized was gnat larvae. I've got roots coming out of the bottom of most of the cups so I checked those carefully and the roots were lined with both types of bugs. I immediately drenched each cup with a 4:1 water to peroxide mixture and the amount of dead larvae and springtails that came out of the bottom was shocking. About a dozen adult fungus gnats emerged from the tops of the cups as I drenched them and I killed them immediately. It's been about 5 hours since I did this and not a single living bug in the drip cups. Once the top of the soil dries, I'm going to dress with diatomaceous earth and use mosquito dunk occasionally during watering and will be hanging some fly strips. Hopefully this keeps things under control.
I had fungus gnats last year outside, since it rained a lot during our spring. I used fine playground sand and just put a layer about 1/2-1 inch thick on the top of the soil. Gnats couldn't get to the good stuff or moisture and never came back. Was cheap and easy tip from somebody here on the forums.
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