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Gnat problem!

Hot Pooper

Hot Pooper

I've had my plants in a "grow box" for a good month-and-a-half now. (Slowly adding more and more seedlings as they sprout.) A couple of days ago, I noticed a few gnats flying around. So, I did a search on here, and online, and found a home recipe, if you will, for a home made gnat trap. Seems like the general concensus is apple cider vinegar with sugar. Well, I have tried that, and all it has done is make the inside of my grow box stink. (Not too bad though.)
Anyone have any ideas before this gets out of control? I JUST tried another suggestion Silver Surfer gave me the other day of spraying the plants with a peroxide mixture to kill the fungi that have been growing on my seedlings. (I use the fish tank method to germinate. It gets REALLY moist in there, creating fungi. Plants germinate REALLY quick, but I am reconsidering due to the fungi that grows.) I read that gnats like to feed on all kinds of fungi, even burrowing a few inches into the soil to lay eggs.
This SERIOUSLY needs to get under control NOW, or else I will HAVE to put my plants outside. And seeing as how it still gets into the 30's and 20's at night here, that's not good. I can TRY to put a few heat lamps in the box, but not sure if that will work.

PLEASE HELP!!
 
Maybe try sprinkling a little cinnamon on the soil. It worked for me a while back with a houseplant. It's also supposed to prevent damping off.
 
Pooper, if you take some sand and put a layer of it over the soil, the female gnats won't be as attracted to the pots.

She lays her eggs in the compost and her larvae feed on organic material in the soil. They absolutley love peat moss.

But she is less likely to lay her eggs in sand and will instead look for a more suitable place to raise her kin.

dvg
 
Hmmmmmm. I will hafta give THAT a try! Maybe even sprinkle a little cinnamon on there for good measure!
I wonder if putting cinnamon extract will make the pods any hotter? lol
 
dvg said:
Pooper, if you take some sand and put a layer of it over the soil, the female gnats won't be as attracted to the pots.

She lays her eggs in the compost and her larvae feed on compost. They absolutley love peat moss.

But she is less likely to lay her eggs in sand and will instead look for a more suitable place to raise her kin.

dvg
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's coincidence, but my gnat problem with my houseplant started when I put a layer of gravel on top of the soil to keep our cat from playing with the dirt.
 
i have gnats, had them all winter long and kill about 10 - 15 a day, had a small spider set up shop in my gold hab container, no gnats in that container. for me i find the gnats not so much in the surface soil but in the bottom holes of my 1 gallon containers. i usually water about once a week, i carry my plants to my bathtub top water first until i see drainage from the bottom holes, i then put the containers in another container and fill that with water. this usually drowns the gnats but by the end of the week they start to reappear. maybe i will try some surface cinnamon. i did spray the bottom of the containers with vinegar but forgot to ever do it again and don't remember the outcome - damn memory!
 
lol...I feel ya on the loss of memory. I have a TERRIBLE memory when it comes to people's names. But #'s? I can see a # and remember it almost immediately. I guess that's why the Navy had me work on their computers. lol
Hopefully the peroxide will scare them away as well. I live in an area that is nothing but red clay, so I'll have to go to Lowe's or Home Depot to get a bag of sand. I need to do it SOON because the grow box is in the living room! :eek:
 
I put gravel (like pea-gravel) on my houseplant and it seemed to spawn a gnat problem. I think it didn't allow the soil surface to dry out. Not sure about sand. Cinnamon won't kill the gnats, but it does repel them. I would see them around the house for a couple weeks after I sprinkled the cinnamon, but not near that plant. Now they're all gone.
 
try looking here

http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/19738-mills-2011/page__st__40

somebody just had a "cure" for this
ain't this the same thing?
 
Well, I JUST tried Musky's cinnamon trick. I dont know if that is exactly did it, but you could see the little bastards fly right to plants that DIDNT have the cinnamon on them! (I ran out of cinnamon. Covered about 85% of my plants though.) I'll keep an eye on them and see what happens with that. Im gonna try that BTi thing IF I can find it.
 
No joke! Looks like we have the right amount of people bored at home, or at "work" watching the thread. lol Actually, I'm doing homework right next to my laptop, so all I keep doing is hitting the "refresh" button. lol
I also have a fan sitting on high to TRY to deter the little f**kers from coming around. I dont think that works as well. They just hide. lol
 
I have the same problem with my over wintered plants I thought they were aphids at first, now I know why they are there.
 
Yeah, they're there to annoy the living PISS out of me! I guess they didn't see my video I made of horn worms last year...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozwx-sRpzY8[/youtube]
 
are pesticides out of the question?
DDVP gas is excellent for killing all sorts of flys and insects, only takes a few days also i hear.
 
Some info on BTi. UC Davis vs fnking gnats

Downside: breaks down rapidly, so needs reapplication from time to time. But does kill the larvae bastids but good. Only kills the larvae. Use yellow sticky traps to capture the flyers.

If you can allow the top of your soil to dry, that helps a lot. (Bottom watering: good.) Sand layer on top prolly work. I put on a dry layer of pine fines and that worked to some extent.

One other trick: diatomaceous earth. I haven't tried this yet as the BTi worked so well, but it can be lightly dusted around inner container edges and around the drain holes in the containers. Anywhere the lil bastards walk around. Downside: Must be kept dry to work. Use a little paint brush to apply in strategic areas.

FNking gnats must die.... :cool:
 
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