Denise,

Is Milady using peat in her mix?

Remo the Wonder Fluff, as well as I, recommend that peat be eschewed.

As to a fix, how about a heavier layer of top dressing? Wait, that won't really solve the problem, will it? I'm thinking soapy water, per your idea, might do it, but I do think that getting rid of any peat would definitely do it.

Where's all that famous Midwestern loam when you need it?

And for your fans out here, how about a picture of Remo with a succulent plant? I'd ask for a picture of Remo and the fungas gnats, but that might be a mite difficult.

Yellow sticky traps work well and water less.

Jeff, I was just going to respond, I'm glad that I read your message first. I will 2nd that.

I wish those yellow sticky traps did work. In the Tropical house at the Huntington, they have proven to be a waste of time. I'm bring my electric fly swater, Norma

Jeff, you silly boy - you should know by now that I haven't used a peat-based mix in quite awhile! Coir and perlite is it for me, and nevertheless those buggers are haunting me! What's a girl to do??

Remo and plant... Hm. Well, I'm not a great photographer (uh, no, he's not a devil dog!), but here's my itty-bitty boy with an Aloe (his ball-ball is hiding behing the Aloe, which is how I got him to sit still...)

{{gwi:504328}}

C94945 - sticky traps? Where do I get those? Are they specifically for gnats? And I always thought it was the larvae that fed on, well, whatever... I know it's usually peat, but there's not a hint of peat here. I hear they also feed on roots, which is why I'm worried...

Well, maybe we'll just hope to bake 'em to death in the hot Nebraska sun this summer!

Denise in Omaha

The traps are at most nurseries. White ones don't work on fungus gnats, but Norma is wrong, yellow ones do work. I know.
Jim

I was browsing for information on natural remedies to deal with fungal infections and came across this link - tells you how to make your own sticky trap.

Here is a link that might be useful: Home Remedies for Fungus Gnat and Damping-Off Control

I would just keep everything dry, that's what worked for me.

Denise,

I'm sure many of the suggestions above could work alone or in combination. I can't remember where I saw it but do a search (on all of GW) for fungus gnats. There are some home remedies that seem to work.

Coincidentally I also have a problem with them right now. I've gotten really good at catching them in mid-air and smashing them in my hand when I see one out of the corner of my eye.

The other day I was starting to sow some Passiflora seeds and was told to soak them in orange juice. I only had oranges so I squeezed some into a container to collect the juice and pulp. The next day inside of the containers was a fungas gnat mass suicide as many went in and were trapped and drowned or squished with my finger. :0)

I hate the little buggers.

Cool - I'll get armed and ready with OJ, yellow paper and vasaline!

Denise in Omaha

You need a sundew plant - small carnivorous plant with sticky leaves. A cape sundew (Drosera Capensis) should grow well next to succulents so long as you stand it in a dish of rain water. I used to have a huge infestation of the little buggers but one decent sized pot of sundews cleared them out. It's organic and effective.

Failing that, try keeping the soil pretty dry between waterings - they wont lay their eggs in dry soil.

Cheers

Kyle

A Sundew! What a great idea - solves the problem AND I have an excuse to acquire another plant! I'm on it.

By the way, I know this isn't the forum but - anyone know the ideal growing medium for Sundews? How about light - full sun, right?

Tom

Just bought 6 sundews! Hopefully this will let me take down those tacky (no pun intended) yellow cards I have all over the place.

Question is: what happens to the sundews after they have 'eaten' all the fungus gnats?

Thanks for the idea!

Tom

Easy...I would go with butterworts (Pinguicula or Pings) and maybe sundews. Most of your pings are going to go non-carnivorous in the winter, and some will even become succulents. Pings are incredible on fungus gnats...much more effective than sudews in my experience. Generally speaking, your sundews are going to want high humidty, which is not something that usually goes hand in hand with cacti.

Regards,
Joe

Yea sure, full sun. Humidity aint a huge issue with sundews, so long as it aint incredibly low. You keep them standing in a dish of water which tends to give them enough humidity to be happy. Pings are a great idea too though.

Grow the sundews in a 50:50 mix of sphagnum peat moss and perlite. Make sure your giving them lots of rain water.

Oh and don't worry, they always find something to eat. Speaking in my experience, I have a huge pot of cape sundews and they keep the fungus gnats down very well. I only see about one a month now.

Kyle

Kyle -

You wrote: "Make sure your giving them lots of rain water."

How detrimental is watering from the tap at this time of year?

Tom

Wow - I'm out of my element here! I've seen pics of sundews (where does one find them??) but what the heck is a "ping?" I'm makin' my way to google - I'm on it like a fly on cow-poop!

Denise in Omaha - pretty darned close to where cows poop!

Ping/butterwort/pinguicula

This is probably the best site on the subject of pings. Yeah, I've got a real soft spot for them.

http://www.pinguicula.org/

Tap water is, generally speaking, fatal to the little carnivor plants. Those guys have evolved primarily to live in marsh/bog enviroments (of couse there are exceptions, and actually pings not so much, but some are more tolerant than others). However, generally speaking, tap water is a no no. I think I give my 2 dozen or so little monsters only rain or RO water. My tap water is from a well and very very harsh stuff in terms of minerals and the like.

Hehe. Well I'm in the UK so I can't personally recommend any companies to you but I've heard good things about the online ones below:

Cooks carnivorous plants

California Carnivores

I'm sure there's loads more companies out there, just search around and find whatever's cheapest. Drosera capensis is the one you want as sundews go.

Hope this helps

Kyle

This is a bit of a challenge at this time of year for me, I think. BTW, what is "RO" water? Is distilled water an acceptable substitute until I can get them outside?

Thanks again.

Tom

Yes, distilled water is close enough to RO. RO is "Reverse Osmosis". Around here you bring your own jugs to the grocery store and can get the RO water for 39 cents a gallon.

Regards,
Joe

This is what I do, firstly use softsoap to control the gnats, using sticky traps work very well. But what I found really works best is to nuke the soil in a thick plastic bag that won't melt in the microwave for 10 minutes or so. What you want to do is get it to boil and kill off everything! Once the soil cools down to room tempature, you can now replant the plants. When I get or buy a plant, I keep it away from the rest till I know its bug free, I spray it with softsoap and then remove the soil that came with it and throw it away, and then use my own mix. By the way that has been nuked a day before and sealed away in that very bag. This has been the only way,(For Me)I've found to keep the gnats from taking over.

Hope this helps, Ron:)

Below is another possible treatment for your gnats, recommending BT. I'm not too sure about the idea of catgrass, however (especially if your dog wanted to eat it!).

Here is a link that might be useful: Read the second question on this link...

What the....

I was thinking I was in the wrong forum for a second. Not that I'm complaining mind you. I was looking into buying some CP to cut down on flies but mostly because I want to build a terrarium. Nice to see that some other C&S growers like CP too.

Jim the yellow ones are being used in a tropical greenhouse just full of peat moss, that is why they are not working, hot, humid and peat moss. We don't grow our seedling in there anymore because of the conditions. In a normal area I'm sure it would work. There are none in the cactus house. I only made a comment that they didn't work in this particular greenhouse. I don't know how they work in other people's houses. I don't have any of these pest in my own greenhouse either. Norma

I like the sundew idea.

What I've found to be 100% effective (at least in the short term or until I introduce another infected plant into the fray) is "BTi". It's the stuff rjm recommended but it's not "BT" -- it's "BTi", very important difference.

It's available in the form of mosquito dunks, available at many nurseries and pond stores.

The dunks are HUGE for using directly but it's easy to break off a very tiny piece, smash it up into your watering can with the water and apply that way. Six dunks are sold in a package for about $10-15; that is enough to water a hundred or so containers -- or share with friends.

Also 100% effective are predaceoous/parasitic nematodes. Unfortunately, theser are yet to be found in a "home gardener form". They are available in concentrates in 1-gallon jugs -- enough to do several thousand pots and with a hefty price.

Joe

HELP! My house has fungas gnats. We have been using sticky strips. They work but it is not quick enough. There are a lot in the house. We purchsed a friendly parasite for the soil in the house plants to eat the eggs, but I think they must have all hatched already. Anyone have any ideas of how to get rid of them. Is there a spray that can be used in the house?

I have had to battle these nasty critters all winter long and havelost many of my plants to them. Someone told me to mix dishsoap with hot sauce to get rid f them, and I think they actually liked it instead because they started multiplying like crazy then. But I kept thinking 'cloves'. So I tried sticking cloves in the soil. That didn't seem to work fast enugh so I thought I'd make a tea of the cloves. From past experience I knew that cinnamon would get rid of ants, so I broke up a large size cinnamon stick and then added that to the tea mixture. Then I thought about garlic, and how it repels 'blood suckers', and these things are 'sap suckers' so I minced up a couple cloves of garlic and added it to the mix as well. I boiled it all together in a 2 quart stainless steal saucepan for 5 minutes, and then let it steap for another 5 minutes. Then I filtered my 'tea' through a coffee filter and oured it into a spray bottle along with a shot of dish detergent for good measure. I took the left over cloves of garlic, cinnamon and cloves and spread it arund two of my pots that had the worst infestation. And then started spraying all the little critters as I saw them come up out of the soil. Viola! It worked!!!!!

aargh! hate them! I dont have time or money to buy sand or gnatrol!

so made my gnat kill cocktail!
garlic, cloves, red dried chilli pepper and some turmeric in my blender with 500 ml water. And then strained it and sprayed in every pot. They hate it!

heheheehe! they crawled out and tried to get out of my pots , even red mites and a tiny worm. They seem repelled! :-D stamp them kill them ! Die bugs die! just die die die! this is revenge for my tiny baby seedlings u ate!

I am so inexperienced with succulents, I am just lost with trying to take care of them. My first problem was mealy bugs. I had no idea what that white sticky stuff was until someone on the forum told me. That problem is solved, but now I have these tiny, tiny things crawling around on a slice of potato that someone said was good for fungus gnats. They do come out and get on the potato, but what am I supposed to do now? I am not really sure of what they are, but I have had some gnats flying around since i started using potting soil. A few of my plants are getting spots that look like it could be a fungus. I am concerned about them. Any idea what these little buggers are and what I can do to fix the problem?

FYI: My plants are indoors and sit in a south bay window. I have a variety and I just need to learn to care for them. Is there a really good book you would recommend? I have made notes on some of the remedies above to see if they will work, too.