Help!! Little gnatty fruit flies are invading!

hearmenow

Well-Known Member
There are lots of these little fruit flies, at least that's what I think they are. I put down some fly paper but it hasn't really helped. Can anyone recommend a solution that won't harm my plants? Thanks in advance!
 

pauliojr

Well-Known Member
I also had this problem in the past. The gnats seemed to live in the soil and fly around a little later. The fly strips are a good way to get rid of the ones flying around. I put that down at the base of the plants. The next thing I did was put white printer paper on top of the soil. This will prevent light from reaching the soil and forces the bugs to come and fly out onto your fly strip. The white paper also reflects some of the light onto the plants.

Make sure you have a good high powered fan so those annoying little gnats won't be able to land anywhere on the plant. Put one at the base too if you feel it is necessary. Just make sure the plants can handle it.
 

green_nobody

Well-Known Member
fly strips will do it, the cheap way would be some strips of duct tape and if it really getting worst spray with a light solution of tobacco tea, that will kill them all for sure;)
 

MacGuyver4.2.0

Well-Known Member
A couple of fairly harmless things you can do:

Its easiest to vacumn lightly around the pot itself, remove those flying buggers. You can also put up a sticky fly strip, they will get attracted to it and hopefully get stuck for good. :wink: AFTER that you can put a 1/2 -1" layer of clean playsand on the top layer of the pot. The gnats have larvae in the soil and they won't burrow out of the sand as it hurts thier tender little bodies. Basically this breaks the life cycle of the gnats and they will die off. No sprays, no nasty chemicals needed. :smile:
 

crbruton

Member
what about in hydroponics? i have little gnat lookin things flyin round mine and they're eating the leaves. eating long tunnels down the leaf. no soil for them to burrow. im using hydroton. what do i do????
 

bonjo78

Active Member
toping the pots with a layer of perlite of around 2-3cms will prevent the suckers to get out once hatches thus becoming fertilizer for our plants , its the best method to elimimnate them without puriung anything into the pot , i just runned out of perlite and now i see those bastards partying !
 
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