fungus gnats! am i doomed?

[heady blunts]

my garden supply store didn't have nematodes, and my plants were looking really sad. i needed immediate action.

so i did a h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) soak, as instructed by the quoted material in post #4 (thanks mtbazz). at first i was nervous that i would "nuke" my microherd, but after some research and common sense, i decided it was really just a method of forcing a ridiculously high amount of DO into your water. hopefully that would only kill off anaerobic organisms, or so went my train of thought.

after the soak had drained a bit, i covered the pots in paint strainers like excalibud7 suggested (thanks). i've always been a fan of exclusionary pest control.

well today they're looking a lot better. there are no flyers in the cab (i did use the old "squash those mf-ers!" type of pest control) and all the plants have perked up noticeably.

hopefully they'll be back to their healthy selves in a couple of days.

i have to do more research, but there may be some serious benefit to watering in a bit of h2o2 every once in a while.

 

[SeMo]

Diatomaceous Earth.....

It slices open the exoskeleton and then sucks them dry...

And it is from mother earth....

 

[guest2012y]

If you can keep the diatomaceous dry long enough for it to work it will.....that's the only problem,it only works when it's dry. It's effective stuff...and you should wear a mask when handling it. Take care of your lungs for the better things in life like herb.

 

[FinestKind]

x2 on nematodes. Wipes them out for about $10.... they are a microscopic worm-like animal that will eat the fly's eggs/larvae.

Maybe this was answered elsewhere, but I didn't want to forget when I saw it... where do you get your nematodes? Do you have a link?

FK

 

[hay]

Maybe this was answered elsewhere, but I didn't want to forget when I saw it... where do you get your nematodes? Do you have a link?

FK

x2, 3 and 4

ive been looking for some time for this $10 deal, but cant find it

i see them under "microworm" on ebay, used as feeding for fish like guppies....is that acceptable type of nematode or can someone reference other source.
hay

ps.also once you establish mosquito dunks culture, can i introduce nematodes afterwords, or it wont survive?

 

[FinestKind]

ps.also once you establish mosquito dunks culture, can i introduce nematodes afterwords, or it wont survive?

Good question!

 

[decarboxylator]

damn gnats! mosquito dunks not doing it. liquid BTi (microbelift, cute name ey?) not working. yellow sticky cards filling up and not really working. gognats not working. DE not working. only watering every 4 days... argh. It's nematode time.

 

[JWP]

River sand on top
I also repot the ladies with a layer of grow wool in the bottom of the pots to stop the lil fckers coming out the drainage holes.

 

[zbenjii]

I just top dress with perlite. Works great because it keeps the gnats from planting eggs.

 

[wiseone]

My methods for dealing with the buggers:

1. Bottom feed/water
2. Add crumbled up mosquito dunks to soil
3. If they get real bad I'll put a thin layer of BUILDERS sand on top. It's courser than play sand and they basically shred themselves up trying to burrow through it.

One thing most people do not consider is this:

TREAT ALL the plants you have in your household. Even if you don't 'see' them around those plants, treat them anyway. All it takes is 1 stray to lay eggs somewhere and that is all she wrote, you'll be back to square 1 again in the fight.