Bugs

[ESPLTD]

I was actually trying to PM this to weasel cracker to avoid spamming the forum every time I have a question, but I guess you have to have 50 posts to PM. This is mostly a copy/paste...anyone that can help, thank you.

So here's what's happening...

I've been noticing some bugs in my grow room. This concerns me a lot because the girls are creeping up on 2 weeks old and (from what I can tell) are doing quite well. Well actually they do seem to have a bit more of a yellowish hue than green but maybe that's just a seedling thing? More than anything I really need to get an ID on this bug. I've uploaded my photo the the gallery but I can't figure out how to post it to a new thread. I'm not sure if you can go to my profile and take a look at the pic? Btw it took me 30 minutes to get that picture. Really the best I could do, and it's magnified many times. I'm not sure if they're gnats or what or if they're even harmful to M. It's easier to spot them when I disturb the soil. They're a brownish black and some seem to have wings while others don't? Do you happen to know what it is and how to get rid of it without hurting the seedlings? Is there a product that would cover a wide array of bugs? I appreciate any help you can give. I did check out the sticky on this topic but couldn't find any pics. It's becoming more and more clear as these issues pop up that I didn't think this all the way through, but now I'm just tryin to roll with the punches. I'm sure everyone's biggest learning experience comes from their first few grows. Guess I'm just getting more lessons than others! Plus I'm curious and hungry for knowledge. Thanks in advance. I really appreciate all of you taking the time to have answered the questions that you already have.

 

[Cannabliss89]

It sounds like it could be fungus gnats. I tried to look at your picture but even with zooming in it was really hard to tell what I was looking at. I'm pretty new at this too, it's a learning process for sure, someone with more experience will probably be able to help you out more

 

[Robert Celt]

As Cannabliss stated, it sounds like fungus gnats. They lays eggs in the soil and the larvae will eat your roots, stunting your plants or even killing young plants if the infestation is bad enough.

Get some yellow sticky traps from a garden store and put up in your grow space, this will catch the adults flying around. To kill off the larvae and prevent further egg laying by the adults, let the top few inches of your soil dry out well before watering, or water from the bottom if you can, and get some diatomaceous earth and cover the soil with it. The diatomaceous earth is very sharp at the microscopic level and won't hurt you, pets or your plants, but it will kill the gnats.

 

[OrganicMan]

Hey there I had a look at your pic & it looks like a fungus gnat. You could try hanging yellow sticky traps to see what they are & how many there are.

 

[OrganicMan]

As Cannabliss stated, it sounds like fungus gnats. They lays eggs in the soil and the larvae will eat your roots, stunting your plants or even killing young plants if the infestation is bad enough.

Get some yellow sticky traps from a garden store and put up in your grow space, this will catch the adults flying around. To kill off the larvae and prevent further egg laying by the adults, let the top few inches of your soil dry out well before watering, or water from the bottom if you can, and get some diatomaceous earth and cover the soil with it. The diatomaceous earth is very sharp at the microscopic level and won't hurt you, pets or your plants, but it will kill the gnats.

Looks like you already knew, I'm too slow great info here mate

 

[ESPLTD]

This site is phenomenal. I can't believe how much help and support is just a click away. I was leaning towards fungus gnats already and now it seems unanimous. And according to the sticky August is the worst month for them. I will treat immediately. I only hope they haven't done much damage to the seedlings though :-( Any additional tips on total prevention? How would they have gotten into my house?

EDIT: so I just checked on the plants and OVERNIGHT one of my seedlings actually made a 45 degree bend. What may have caused this? I'd load a pic but I already stood her back up. The bend was actually sort of away from the light so it wasn't stretching...

 

[jojo677]

I'd lean toward fungus gnats too, but it's hard to tell. Like others mentioned, yellow sticky traps should help trap the flying adults, and if you cover the surface of the soil with diatomaceous earth or a thn layer of sand, it will help kill the larvae. You may also consider treating the plant with dilute neem oil. It is systemic, so you spray the entire plant down and it absorbs it. Then bugs are deterred/killed when they try eating the plants. If you do a weekly spray, you shouldn't have any problems.

I've had fungus gnats several times and the neem oil worked well. I didn't try the sand thing, but also keep an eye on your drainage holes of your container. The gnats seemed to not only fly around the top of the medium, but those drainage holes too.