Gnat nix or diatomaceous earth?

[Will Ferrell]

I have a bad fungus gnat infestation and did a little research and saw lots of good stuff about D.E. so I called the grow shop and he recommended gnat nix and sticky strips instead.
I'm just wondering what y'all think the better buy would be.

 

[Buzz Buzzilla]

Gnat nix or BTI which is a natural fungus and works for gnats at all stages of their life cycle think of it as your long term plan. It needs to be applied to only the base where they go for water and to lay eggs.

Diatomaceous Earth on the other hand is old skeletal remains from algae that under microscope look like sharp Crystal. When a hard bodied insect comes in contact it cuts and sucks all the moisture out of their bodies killing them anywhere from 2 hrs to 1 day.

All that being said I use both to cover a wide range of "bad" pests in my indoor and outdoor growing. Also I came up with my own method for maximizing the D.E.'s coverage, using a teaspoon mixing with a gal of water and misting everything.

 

[Will Ferrell]

I ended up buying the gnat nix and sticky strips. Seems to be working awesome. The dude at the grow shop said pretty much the same thing about the gnat nix how you discribed the D.E. Either way, I just put them in yesterday and there's already a huge difference

 

[undercovergrow]

@Will Ferrell hope you don't mind me jumping onto your thread instead of creating my own but i've won my war with the gnats and wanted to share the victory!
i've battled these little suckers for five or six months. i didn't want to just reduce the population, i wanted to eliminate them. i tried gnatrol, DE, sand, drying my girls out, yellow stickies, etc. i use air-pots and all the holes were not helping. an aside: i would not recommend air-pots to grow cannabis because you're going to get bugs during the process and the holes contributed to the infestation IMO. harder to water and get a good soaking to the girls because it leaks out all the top holes so you have to water slowly, but even then there isn't even coverage if you're not careful.
what helped: a member here on RIU (sorry i don't remember who it was) posted in another thread about watering...and what he said clicked with me. i'd been "drying them all out" but because i have girls in various container sizes, some get thirsty before others and i was doing exactly what he said i shouldn't--i was watering everyone when in there even if they didn't quite need it because i didn't want to have to come back in a day or two just to water the one or two girls...once i stopped that practice AND added CB-80 and put tanglefoot on a container that was really infested, the gnats are gone! the CB-80 is a spray for just the adults--kills 'em dead in the air. oh, i also added two rounds of beneficial nematodes too.
the combination of drying out all girls and watering all of them only when they need it along with the nematodes, CB-80 and tanglefoot on the one pot that was infested did the trick.
yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[JSCGROW]

Hey guys, I was having a fungus gnat issue in both grow tents. We have strips, we used the Diatomaceous Earth, it all kind-of worked... until my roommate read somewhere on the interwebs about using SAND. The sand keeps the bugs from digging down to lay eggs (not enough air pockets), and it keeps the larvae from digging out. Used with strips, we noticed a near-extinction of fungus gnats--we're only a few weeks into this experiment.

We purchased a bag of play sand for around $3 at the hardware store, and placed a at the top of each smart pot (plants around a few weeks old. Haven't/Won't try it on seedlings). After a few weeks, no noticeable (negative) changes to the plants.

I would recommend this technique over drying out/using chemicals-- if you try this, make sure all soil media is covered by the sand. The few centimeters under the soil is where the eggs/larvae are... you're basically suffocating them so be thorough!

(Desert weed? )

 

[vostok]

Neem oil to help you save on vacuuming it up from ya carpet ,..to my blog: https://www.rollitup.org/Journal/Entry/neem-oil.27514/

 

[Buzz Buzzilla]

Neem works well but that smell! Not to mention no one really knows if it's ok to smoke neem or it's affects....I use Diatomaceous Earth which works on adults and sand works for a while, green sand being the best. Habinero spray is also great for an immediate solution killing adults. The most effective solution I have found is to use worm tea! It kills larvae and adult nats, mites, thrips, and helps protect against diseases while providing much needed micro nutes and adding microbes to your soil!

 

[Mdieselboy]

So I put some DE in top soil mixed it In too few inches and then covered soil with sand !! Hope it works nine aren’t bad ...just don’t want it to get worse !! Will be buying some worm Tea also !! I’ll report back how’s the de and sand work out though? Does it kill any larva that may be in there ??

 

[Brettman]

Oh wow! I didn’t realize we had celebrities using RIU ! So now we know what kind of activities he was really doing with that open space.

 

[MickFoster]

i use air-pots and all the holes were not helping. an aside: i would not recommend air-pots to grow cannabis because you're going to get bugs during the process and the holes contributed to the infestation IMO. harder to water and get a good soaking to the girls because it leaks out all the top holes so you have to water slowly, but even then there isn't even coverage if you're not careful.

I use air pots and have no problem at all.....I cover them with pantyhose.....queen size works best. Lol. It prevents the gnats from getting in the holes to lay eggs. Also, original air pots don't have holes in the top two rows to help prevent the water from draining out the sides. You might also consider using hydro halos for feeding.....makes it easier.