Help with bugs?

ok, my situation is like this; I grow in a very small cabinet in my room. This cabinet has one fluorescent tube about 2 feet in length. the cabinet is 2 feet in height and 3 feet in width. there is a shelf in there so i could grow them when they were small. when they get a bit bigger ill take the shelf out. i dont know the wattage of the light though :/ and i use miracle grow potting mix. i know its bad. i recently switched to boiling water and letting it sit for a day. then using it. so far so good. they grew to 4 inches in about 4 days. 3 out of the 14 plants now have 10 leaves on them, and 5 of them have died due to experimentation, or falling over. I have them in beer pong party cups and i understand i need to transplant them soon. ive got 3 of them put into milk jugs but im on a $0 budget. I keep the temperatue around 80 degrees. it'll be 2 weeks of growth in 2 days and they stopped at 4 inches. one of them(recently transplanted) has it's bottom leaves curling and turning yellow..i watered them 3 times a day origionally and realized im an idiot. i now water them when the soil seems dry-ish. i use a spray bottle to water them though..i wish i knew the amount of water to water and what time exactly to water them..like a ratio..but thats too complicated for anybody to find out and tell me . ok..now to the big point.

Every time i open my cabinet, to water or give breeze to my babies, little tiny flying bugs are flying around enjoying themselves crawlin all over my babies. I do not enjoy their company and i want them gone. If they are not affecting my plants i actually dont care, and it doesnt seem like they are, but the question here is.. will they? if they are could i get some tips on how to remove them or kill them or make my plants eat them or something crazy..lol..

any other problems or tips read i'd love to hear, i want my babies to grow to their fullest potential within that small area.

much respect and appreciation,
1st time grower past 3 inches

you didn't describe the bugs too closely, are they a black color?
if so, likely fungus gnats - a very wide spread pest
i've found a small bowl/cup with water and dish washing detergent makes an excellent trap
they seem to love the odor or something, will kamikaze right into it
takes a while to get rid of them, but it does work and is very easy to do

lol i had that exact same problem but they got cooked inmy cabnit lol. but i was in the sameplace you were man earlier last summer, when or if you move them outside you might have slug problems too. i know i did what stopped them for us is we dug a hole and balanced the pots on a few thin boards, but we made sure they were stable. the end resultit was too much work for the slugs to get accross, lol lazy fat mother fuckers, and they didnt die and attract more.

cruzer101 said:

I'll tell you what, you show me a strain that will eat white flys and I will show you many happy growers.
I like the idea though. I hate bugs. Maybe we could cross a Venus fly trap with marijuana.
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Wouldn't that be something to see...lmao

vcb66615 said:

i wish i knew the amount of water to water and what time exactly to water them..like a ratio..but thats too complicated for anybody to find out and tell me .

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Not complicated - just not possible. There is no cut and dried "give it x amount of water on these days" answer. Too many variables affect it - your medium, pot size, plant age, plant strain, current growth phase, temps and humidity and so on. Best answer - when they wake up, jam your finger down into the soil, if you don't feel moisture, water it.

The bugs sound like gnats. I recommend scrapeing together about twelve bucks and getting a bottle of neem oil from Lowes or Home Depot - mix it with warm water, spray/saturate your plants - especially the soil. This got rid of them for me. Now I do an ounce of prevention - doesn't take much, spray the plant before you see a bug. The flying ones don't harm your plant - their larvae will. They start out eating your fine root hairs, then your main root, and finally, burrow up into the main stalk. Not a good thing.

"Not complicated - just not possible. There is no cut and dried "give it x amount of water on these days" answer. Too many variables affect it - your medium, pot size, plant age, plant strain, current growth phase, temps and humidity and so on. Best answer - when they wake up, jam your finger down into the soil, if you don't feel moisture, water it."-DoeEyed

(im a noob to forums sorry )

i just wish i knew a formula..i like math..i want to make an equation someday to just enter all that info and it pops out an answer that tells you..oh water this much on these days and you will be good to go..

anyways..thanks a bunch guys..you guys all rock major-hardcore..ill take this advice to heart and see what i can come up with..ill let you guys know if it works or not..

again, thanks a crap load..i gotta go boil some more water
peace

Chances are you have fungus gnats. You can use cedar oil which is the basis of GoGnats. If you can find some plain cedar oil, just mix that in with water and throw that in the soil. Cedar oil will f up any larvae and the flies can't handle it so they'll go. They like plenty of moisture so letting the plants dry out a lil will help. However, know that it will stress the plant a bit but it can take a few days of dryness, the gnats can't. The adult flies don't eat anything; it's the larvae that do the damage to the roots mainly. So, you can foliar feed by spraying water directly on the leaves.

I had the gnats too, in DWC, but they were actually outside of the pot itself as there was a slight leak where the tubing went into the pot so there was plenty of water to feed right there. The top portion of the pot was always dry. So, I let the plant drink up the rest of the solution and boom, no more flies and all the plants have since been transplanted to the closet from the veg cab. Cedar oil was the next step if the gnats didn't go away. I suffered no damage.

As far as watering, just water enough to see some run off or water coming out the bottom. That way you know the media has been thoroughly watered. While the plants are young, you don't have to water so often and shouldn't. You should allow the soil to dry out a bit. In doing so, the roots will grow more to look for more water promoting greater root structure. But as the plant begins to grow more and more, it will drink more and more. For example, with my hydro setup, in the beginning, I could go a week without even looking at the water. Just before the transplant, 5 weeks, it would suck in most of that same amount of water in a day or two.

Here are some pics to show you what's happening in veg. 9/16 and then 10/13. Plants went under the light 9/9 tho in peat pellets

Get a hot shots hanging bug strip. Itll get em outta there!!

shweet...i used water and dishwasher detergent...so far its working great..ive only seen like 6 bugs now..and 3 of them are dead in the cup thanks alot guys..they'll all be dead soon..and with every death there is a birth..MY BABIES! ^_^