Fungus Gnats!

I covered my soil with sand as per the pictorial for pests suggest.

My question now is will this inhibit root growth? It seems like the sand will smother the roots and not allow oxygen to get to the roots.

Further, once smothered do I just water from the top as usual - this will make the sand drain into the soil and open new areas for the gnats to get to the roots.

It only been 36 hours but I don't see them now.

:peace: X
 
I covered my soil with sand as per the pictorial for pests suggest.

My question now is will this inhibit root growth? It seems like the sand will smother the roots and not allow oxygen to get to the roots.

Further, once smothered do I just water from the top as usual - this will make the sand drain into the soil and open new areas for the gnats to get to the roots.

It only been 36 hours but I don't see them now.

:peace: X

Bottom-feed. It won't inhibit root growth as long as you let it dry out properly between feedings. I use sand now as a preventative, along with fabric pots, but initially, when the problem with the gnats came up, i used standard plastic pots and it didn't affect their root growth.
 
I covered my soil with sand as per the pictorial for pests suggest.

My question now is will this inhibit root growth? It seems like the sand will smother the roots and not allow oxygen to get to the roots.

Further, once smothered do I just water from the top as usual - this will make the sand drain into the soil and open new areas for the gnats to get to the roots.

It only been 36 hours but I don't see them now.

:peace: X

Sand is well draining. It allows for a good bit of air in the soil. As long as the sand is not fine like dust you are great.

Sand is just small pebbles after all. And small pebbles is a fantastic growing medium by itself (besides having no nutes)
 
Also, there's something to be said about covering your soil. We can't link to any outside websites, so Google 'back to eden documentary' and apply what you see to cannabis, or, as the Bible calls it, 'kaneh bos'm'. It's gonna sound weird, but I pray to Yah when I garden and one of the first things He 'told' me (I didn't hear a voice, the way He usually speaks is by just dropping knowledge in you, what I call a 'knowing'. A LOT like how Neo 'knew' kung fu in The Matrix. lol) was to cover the coco/soil. Then I came across this video and a lot of what He told me He also told this other dude. Another thing I do is bottom-feed because that's how Eden was. Springs came up out of the ground and watered the plants, so that's how I do it. btw, I think it's funny when I tell other Christians that Yah helps me grow herb. lol
 
Thanks DrOfDank and JimmyCricket that eases my mind. :thumb:

Bottom feeding: I assume you mean pour water/nutes in the saucer under the pot and allow the capillary effect of the soil and of course roots to pull the water/nutes up into the plant/pot. The Urban Dictionary has quite a different definition lol :geek:

:peace: X
 
Thanks DrOfDank and JimmyCricket that eases my mind. :thumb:

Bottom feeding: I assume you mean pour water/nutes in the saucer under the pot and allow the capillary effect of the soil and of course roots to pull the water/nutes up into the plant/pot. The Urban Dictionary has quite a different definition lol :geek:

:peace: X

lol Yes, that.
 
h202 (hydrogen peroxide) if bought at 3% strength and mixed 1 part h2o2 to 4 parts h2o will kill fungus gnat larvae and any other pests and will then break down into water and oxygen nullifying fungus gnat concerns and oxygen deprivation issues, combine this with plenty of yellow sticky traps and your golden, also let the pots dry out rather well between waterings, gnats don't like it dry.
 
Okay I still have a gnat problem I covered the soil with sand and bottom fed for about a couple weeks but the flying freaks keep on coming. I used peroxide mixed 5:1 twice in the last four feedings I can see the little larvae in the saucers flipping around until they stop so i think I am getting the upper hand but I am tired of these critters. I just re-read the pest control and nutrient sticky pictorial again and he says to use tobacco juice "It will kill them"

Can I make a tobacco juice and soak/flush the plant with it to get those flying ones out then peroxide the bottom to keep the larvae dead. Then also spray the plant with the tobacco juice to get them to fly away into traps etc?

I guess the questions are:
1) How much tobacco juice can I use to water the plants with - surely the tobacco tea has some nutrients the plant can use - right?
2) Will the tobacco juice , if used this way, cause any harshness or bad smoke when the harvest comes eta 6 weeks?
3) This is my first grow of my own, am I being impatient?
4) Safer yard and garden insecticide is supposed to be safe to eat, I haven't researched this product is it an organic pesticide? I do eat these plant leaves.

:peace:X
 
tobacco can cause the mosaic virus in cannabis, not common, but probably not worth the risk.

keep burning the babies with h202 and keep catching the flies with yellow stickies.

if you feel you cannot win (i had 30 plants that were infected with fungus gnats, i never won, i just kept killing enough to get my crop to harvest then shut down the grow till they all died). then you need to purchase gnat killer from our sponsor sierra natural sciences.
 
It is winnable. I defeated them in a perpetual grow, but it takes time and effort. Keep the sand on top, keep bottom-feeding and keep replacing your sticky traps. You'll beat them.
 
Gnatrol works great. i just wiped out a colony that had setup shop and it only took 2 days to notice a huge difference. did a repeat treatment several days later and the adults seem pissed. hopefully they won't be around much longer.
 
I bought Safer End All and sticky traps, treated just the top soil and saucers with End All. I don't want to ingest anything later. I felt like the secretary in Ghost Busters when they get their first call, "Got one...!!!" when I saw a gnat on a sticky. I found some larvae on the leaves of one plant with a magnifier. Same size as the ones in the saucers that flip around in the peroxide. I inspected nearly every leaf on all plants and found 4 larvae which I smashed in my fingers. It made me do some more research too as I didn't think they would be on the leaves. The nute def and pest control pictorial here on 420mag does say they work their way up the plant and I found a report from Colorado State University that says you can find them on leaves. I am buying more HP'oxide to keep them at bay. There is some leaf damage and it looks like residue of sap and some white and brown spots. With a magnifier you can barely see some black specs around these areas on the leaves. I don't know if this is fungus spores or black eggs or who knows. So far just one plant with those black spot symptoms. Just in case of fungus I turned up the exhaust fan speed to decrease the humidity and heat in the room. In general I feel better and I am not going to freak on this anymore. Nature does its thing...

:peace:X
 
are you sure you dont have 2 problems, could you have spider mites as well, they look like tiny black things under the leaves, so have a god look and check for signs of spider mites,

mosquito dunks are perfect for killing fungus gnats, just water the plants with mosquito dunks and this will kill everything in the soil and its safe for the plants so used a couple of times should get them under control, but finding black spots on the leaves is usually a sign of spider mites but you would need a good scope to see these,

hopefully its just a case of fungus gnats but sounds like your on the right path to getting it sorted
 
These black specs are on the top of the leaf, around the white spots where the larvae did damage, maybe larvae pooh, or fungus spores, they do not move. I watched for 5 minutes looking for any motion with a magnifier. I caught five gnats on the stickies and a couple more with my hands today. I do not see anything under the leaves.

There are white bumps on the main stem that look like an area where a root would form but these goes half way up the stem. These do not move, I have been looking for images of this on the net to compare. These have been there since I started the grow. I hope this is not some sort of burrowing. You can scrape them but they only rupture some sappy stuff. I am not doing anything about it until I research and find images of it.

When you think you have a pest problem it is easy to become paranoid or stressed that other things are happening. One step at a time, research, sometimes less is more.

Thanks for all input
:peace:X
 
i agree, just focus on the gnats for now, not sure what the sappy stuff is but their is something that burrows in the plants but ive not come across it on this site often so cant really remember the culprit, something like minor burrowers or something similar but i think this mainy attack the leaves,

we can rule out spider mites then, you would of seen them moving by now,
one way of catching some fungus gnat larvae is to peel a potato and cut it into big chunks then place this on top of the grow medium, the larvae will move onto this as its a good easy food source, that will give you some idea of how bad the problem is, you should see many of them crawling on the potato,

ill try and find someone who knows something about these burrowing bugs and get them to come and read what you have posted, maybe they will tell you its nothing to worry about but when i had fungus gnats well ive still got them but their under control, i only see 1 flying every few days now,

the best thing to stop them is that demacious earth or what ever its called, the sand stops them getting into the soil but the flies also lay eggs under the pots in the drain holes and any holes that the pot has, so their tough to get under control, letting the grow medium dry out helps but the problem with fungus gnats larvae is that they can lay dormant during dry conditions so its a slow process but can be controlled with mosquito dunks, the peroxide works well but get the mixture right as im not sure on the mixture, it causes no problems to the plant as it just fizzes away and turns into co2 so sort of benefits the plants,

let me see what i can find out for you, lets just sort the gnats out first, the fly traps work as long as their a bright colour like yellow, one option i found worked was to put some vasoline onto some bright card like a bright yellow or orange card, this trapped more than the fly paper but the fly paper i was using was the brown type, so if you got the bright yellow type then they work much better.
 
oh i remember how i killed my gnats in the end. i drowned the little bastards.

i had forgotton because of the life problems i had at the time, had to kill the crop and all that =(

how i got rid of mine was to fill my bath up with water. water the hell out of my plants in the grow room and slap the vegitation about a bit to get the gnats airborn and hiding anywhere but on the plant (watering makes the fliers evacuate the soil). i took all my plants like this into the bathroom and submersed the entire pot and soil beneath the waterline and left them there for 24 hours. during this time i closed the door to my growing room and opened the windows and had a bloody good clean out and chased away as many as i could. this pretty much obliterated the colony and between gnatoff, h202 and yellow stickies the problem remained gone ;)
 
lol, drown them, now thats a good idea,

they wouldnt last long under water, thats guaranteed, not a method i tried but them bugs need to breath O2 so without O2 they cant live, just make sure if using this method that their is nothing at all left flying in grow room, you could even use some fly spray as long as the plants where not in their, i have used that method, when i empty my grow room to give it a clean i give it a couple of sprays with some fly/wasp killer, just give it a spray and close the door, then vent it out good after, not tried the drowning method but i think if you let the pots dry out for a few days then it would not harm the plants.

interesting idea GiGa, not come across that method, thats twice your taught me something new today,

plus reps,
 
I've caught around 15 gnats in the last few days, some by hand clap (I'm getting better at it) but around 10 on the stickies now which is pretty high to the ratio of plants. I get to peroxide them on the top soil today. The plants are looking good still. Is it just me or do these gnats like to fly-by when you have your hands full of nutrients?

:peace:X
 
they always seem to pop up when you cant get them, mine tend to fly up when i water so i get ready to catch some after i water my plants,

i very rarely see any now, probably just 2 in a weeks so im pretty much under control with mine, its a slow process as you need to break their life cycle to stop them reproducing,

their is another option you can use and thats to cover the pots with demacious earth or what ever its called, this shreds them to pieces and will stop them laying eggs in the top soil,
 
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