Food grade diatomaceous earth is another effective treatment to get rid of fungus gnats. ... But if you mix some into the top layer of infested soil—or better yet, into your potting mix before planting—it will kill any gnat larvae (and adults) that come in contact with it, as if they were crawling through crushed glass.
Tiny bugs living in soil PLEASE HELP
- Thread starter Thanksfortheinfo
- Start date
Had small flies in soil, took a closer look at the soil and there were tiny white worms that were maybe a tenth of a mm in diameter and 5 to 10 mm long, that were actually fly larva. They all came in a bag of miracle gro organic soil. I mixed the soil half and half with peat moss, mixed in about 20% perlite, and no more flies or visible worms. Almost everything started in the original soil had issues ranging from leaves shriveling and curling, long periods of little to no growth, irregular growth like 1 of the 3rd sets of leaves being the first leaf to reach a normal size, with that one leaf being larger than the entirety of all the other leaves combined. Transplanting to the mixture resolved all of the problems, but some were still stuck as seedlings in small cups and too weak to transplant when the first plant began flowering. Also, I had to quit watering until the soil lost its black appearance and became brown for the seedlings to finally wake up out their dormant stage--when they finally did, they almost caught up with the one that was flowering.
4BarrelPLip
Member
Well the ones in my post where crawling all over diatomaceous earth plus once it got wet it was like cement these little buggers are had to get rid of.
tstick
Well-Known Member
I dampen some pieces of brown paper (like a grocery bag) and lay them over the top of the soil...24 hours later, take a close look at the paper. For whatever reason, these bugs like the paper better than the soil....They might be predatory mites...could be root aphids (bad). I just wait until they pile onto the paper and then keep discarding the paper. It seems to take several days of repeating this method, but, in the end, it has pretty much taken care of the problem....for now.
DyersEve451
Member
You'll have a lot of people giving you advice on this and I'm sure many would help you, but there's a fool proof easy way to deal with them. Get AzaMax and use their directions for a soil drench. I do a couple of them on every seed germination I do, and that's a metric shit ton of seeds and seedlings. When my Gene Forge is in selection mode I germinate around 150 seeds every two weeks looking for breeding quality plants and when I do the AzaMax drench I have zero losses or stressed plants. If I don't I would have anywhere from 10% to 25% losses. AzaMax doesn't yellow or otherwise screw with the plants, even with cotylings before any true leaves show up. I wish someone would have turned me on to it 30 years ago. All those lost cannasouls. It chokes me up every time I think about The Lost Ones. What did I lose? What did I miss? lol, anyhow, try it out you won't be disappointed.
DyersEve451
Member
AzaMax drench. I had fungus gnats killing off 10% to 25% seedlings. AzaMax ended that the first time I used it. I just do two drenches on seedlings at 2 days old and ten days old. If any gnats show up after that I just hit 'em again, but that almost never happens. Honestly, it's the only real thing I've found, and I'm germinating hundreds to thousands of seeds a year at The Gene Forge, Luck Dragon Seeds. Remember that anything that hits your roots hits your whole grow. To grow good cannabis, grow good roots. One of the things I learned from the old timers and has never let me down.
tstick
Well-Known Member
Well...Just by chance, I was experimenting with using hydrogen peroxide to help some heavily-rooted plants to give them a boost of O2...and I submerged the pots in a 5 gallon bucket and gave them a drench of diluted hydrogen peroxide. I'm not sure how the roots responded yet...but a side-effect of doing it was that there were no more fungus gnats -at all! Yes, I might have killed off any beneficial bacteria in the potting soil, but, then again, no gnat larvae is eating the roots, either. The effects of the H2O2 are very momentary and it just breaks down to water and oxygen in the end. But, apparently, when the extra oxygen molecule breaks down, it gives off some kind of energy that kills the gnat larvae and other bugs and eggs, etc. in the soil. If this is all it takes to obliterate a pest that I've always had to fight off in my tents, in the past, then I'm going to make it a regular practice in my grows from now on.
DyersEve451
Member
Yep, that'll do it too. I've had the H2O2 thing explained to me several different ways but the just of it is that when one of the O's in O2 break out of the less stable H2O2 molecule creating a more stable H2O molecule and a free radical Oxygen molecule. The free O is an oxidizer that is seriously dangerous to some living organisms, predominantly small insect and smaller organisms. I've used it before and I've had some severe yellowing crop up in the plant population treated some days later and I've gotten what I consider better results using AzaMax because I didn't have those problems. I've used it on 36-48 hour old seedlings with zero detectable negative results. I recently used it on a 60+ seed germination with the loss of only one seedling due to unrelated reasons. A cat was involved. Cats are a scourge on all growing environments. Eliminate them from you facilities.
Applechewer
Active Member
Azamax.
northside novis
Well-Known Member
Try leaching yr soil with clean water with a few drops of dish wash liquid for every couple of litres of water FILLING yr drip tray with run off tip this out dont let them sit in excess water as they'll slowly suck it all back up but this process helps for a whole lot of issues mites, aphids and it brings yr soil back to a neutral P.H and it even gives u a clean slate if you over fertilize, so u can start from scratch, this lil gem has totally saved my ass more than once, that's for sure hope this helps dude
conor c
Well-Known Member
If your worried about it and your plants are otherwise strong and healthy then a quick dunk in ice water can be a good organic method for killing some gnats or mites and stuff long as your plants are well established it should only slow em down for a lil bit i dont mean drown it or freeze the roots to hell just enough to kill/slow down the bugs