There’s flies all over my plants and room! HELP! The plants are healthy and haven’t had any issues in the past few months, but just today I woke up to about 10 flies by my Fishbone Cactus, Heartleaf Philodendron, and Neon Pothos. HELP!
Fungus gnats. Their larvae breed in continuously wet soil. Yellow sticky traps catches the adults. Mosquito Bits kills the larvae ending the lifecycle. I recommend changing the soil and reducing the pot size to about 3 inches for the cactus and no more than 4 inches for the other small cuttings/plants. The small plants can’t use the water in the large pots. This leaves wet soil to breed pests and cause root rot. Also, the soil needs more aggregate like perlite to increase drainage.
8 likesHow do you go about utilizing the Mosquito Bits? I have some for my rain barrel, but am not sure how I’d apply inside.
0 likes There are instructions on the back of the Mosquito Bits package on the amount to use in a gallon of water. You let them soak in the water to activate the helpful bacteria. Then, water the plants every time.
0 likes
So for the adults you can use sticky traps. Did you recently bring a plant in? Adults mean they're laying eggs now, so you'll need to treat the soil. Either with a predatory nematodes, BTI (mosquito bits, fungas gnat killer), or a peroxide dilution
1 like All the new plants were previously propagated and no other plants have been outside except for repotting.
0 likes I got an infestation once from soil i bought, the eggs can really come in from anything
4 likes The adults can come in on clothes and on pets or just fly in when you open the door.
2 likes Any specific brands of bug larvae killer you would recommend? Trying to find one on Amazon currently Also should I get a spray for this? All the ones I find are sprays
0 likes I mainly use the nematodes now. Unless I'm in between a re-up of them. A pray isn't going to do much. You want something that you can put in the water, like peroxide, mosquito dunks, or fungas gnat drops
2 likes
I pour hydrogen peroxide in the soil it kills the larvae it doesn’t hurt the plants and it kills mold
3 likesHydrogen peroxide helped a lot when mine got really bad. I have a few now but not enough to be a problem. Might use it again soon tho just to keep them in check.
1 like
I use microbe-lift BMC drops, you can get them on Amazon, another plant lover was recommending the drops. I had really bad infestation and I used one drop per gallon with every single watering for all of my plants and it totally got rid of the gnats and the larvae.
1 like BMC and Mosquito Bits/Dunks have the same active ingredients: Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israeliensis). BMC is a liquid and Mosquito Bits/Dunks are solids that dissolve in water. Water every time with them.
0 likes
Put dish soap, apple cider vinegar, and sugar with a little bit of water in a cup, and put some soap around the inside with sugar. I caught so many gnats and flies with that
3 likes I’ve now learned that mosquito dunks are for outside plants.
0 likes
Always buy soil that the nursery keeps it inside like the Home Depot by my house keeps their soils outside I always go to Lowe’s because they keep their soil inside. When it’s outside it rains so it constantly gets wet and when it gets wet it grows bugs and worms I’ve NEVER had bug issues since I changed the type of soil I buy.
0 likes