Nats

thexception

Well-Known Member
in ur soil? first put fresh cut potato slices on ur top soil for about 12-16 hours so any larvae will find its way to them. Then throw out ur potato slices, & water ur plant with a 10% household peroxide ratio to water. Repeat upon next watering if needed.
 

Spicy8305

Active Member
Fuck gNats.
....those things suck, I've had them for a bit now. they seem to be dying off now that I put a layer of sand over the soil . As far as a pesticide?..... none worked for me. I've had luck with Original Palmolive and water mix but you have to keep at it for a week or so
 

kend

Member
Get some of that sticky yellow cardboard from grow store.(One of the few things worth buying at grow store). The yellow attracts them. You will be amazed at the number you catch.

It seem stupid but it really works.

I have seen recommendations about killing their larvae with hydrogen peroxide. I tried this on one plant. It did not kill it ! I am not sure it helped.
 

angelfish8706

Active Member
i been tryn to get rid my gnats for a while now... peroxcide did nothing that i could see. i have a layer of sand on top of my soil with a layer of (d.e.) dieatimatious earth inbetween soil and sand. .5 cup of d.e. miixed in my soil mix. watering once aweek with skeeter dunks. sticky traps all over my rooms and a tray of fruit peels in the middle of 2 sticky traps. you have to break there cycle of life and only one treatment wont work. hope some of this helps you ... its slowly working for me...
 

angelfish8706

Active Member
0331111539-00.jpghere how much they like yellow...lol this is what it looks like when they are out of hand. thats one trap out of about ten of them..
 

pelt1

Well-Known Member
I have had a slight gnat problem for a while. It's not an all out infestation, but an annoyance. I did the potatoe thing, and for sure that breaks the life cycle. I have done it on at least two occassions, the first time I figured they came back because I didn't keep the potatoes going for long enough after they dissapeared.

After that, I tried this organic spray, they seemed to just be annoyed by that.

Now I have sand on the top, and I mix some dish washing liquid in all my water and nutes that I use on my plants. I also made some tobacco juice with some dish washing liquid in that. I lightly spray the top of the sand with that mixture.

So I'm hoping they are slowly going away again.
 

Nullis

Moderator
I tried the potato slice thing one time and the gnats seemed entirely uninterested. The gnats can't really do any harm to an established plant, it would have to be one hell of an infestation. They mainly eat fungus (hence why they're called fungus gnats) and dead organic matter. Obviously, though, they are really annoying and during late flowering they have a tendency to become stuck in the lowers buds.

Sticky traps are good and really everybody should have them in the grow room whether they have any kind of flies or not. There are the long strips that hang from the ceiling/elsewhere, available at most home improvement centers, and there are also those that go on stakes placed right into the soil which is what kend is referring to, I believe. Those kind are not as widely available; I like the Safer brand as opposed to the Gnat-Stix because the Safer ones have plastic stakes, are multi-tiered and are just plain nicer to work with. The Gnat-Stix have wooden stakes and those have a tendency to decay in organic soil.

If possible, you should use the fly strips that hang from the ceiling in conjunction with those that you stick right into the planting media.

Sand might help on the top layer, but the gnats will find other points of entry such as the drainage holes. Some people recommend putting Diatomaceous Earth on top of the soil, and I would imagine that they've never actually done it themselves because it turns into a sloppy fucking mess. DE also has to be dry in order to work; it kills by mechanical and not chemical means, basically dehydrating and piercing the body of the insect. If anything you could spread DE on the floor and in crevices where the gnats fly around, if they get any on themselves they will died within 48 hours.

I have had some success using a Pyrethrin spray and Mosquito Dunks (Bacillus thuringiensis isreali). Pyrethrin as a botanically-derived insecticide that kills on contact and breaks down within several hours, it is no toxic to birds, mammals or amphibians and leaves no toxic residues which is ideal for our purposes. The spray is widely available, again at most home improvement centers. I am pretty sure this is the same stuff as Dr. Doom, only that brand costs more than it should.

The Bti is a natural bacterium that kills the larvae of a few select species of insects, including fungus gnat larvae (and mosquito larvae). The Mosquito Dunks are widely available; you can soak a dunk in a bucket or jug over night and apply the water to the soil. Do this periodically.
 

pelt1

Well-Known Member
tobacco juice...does that keep the flyers off the sand? whats the ratio for that if you dont mind?
I read somewhere that gnats don't like tobacco. I figured it was worth a shot. I can't say that it works or doesn't work as I still have the little bastards in my cab, although their population is dwindling. For what I did it was about 10 ozs of water, with the tobacco from 5 cigarrettes, that marinated over night.
 
Top