Phorid fly problem.

[Jeremy Gareau]

Hello Im a new to the tarantula hobby. I’ve been having issues with phorid flies. There’s no left over food ever, and has actually been a problem since before. I use coconut fibre so they bother the crap out of me. I put out apple cider vinegar with soap to cure it but to no avail. More keep reproducing somehow then I can kill and I cannot find the breeding ground or what’s going on. I took extreme measure in sanitizing my entire room and the substrate as well by baking it to the extreme. I then sprayed the room down and let cure for 24 hours everything’s fine for a day. My T hasn’t been fed since made a burrow it’s in pre Molt straight after sanitation and I awake to find a nasty amount of these buggers still. I then sprayed again changed the lid on my enclosure as there no where else but inside this dry humid enclosure with minimal water and I just get stressed with anxiety of seeing amounts of theming if I only seen one I wouldn’t be bothered as much. I’ve even changed the ventilation on the enclosure and still I’m finding like 10 inside of it. Where the heck are they coming from? I’ve only fed the T, twice since it came to my possession and the pet store is literally across the road from me so I don’t keep crickets or dead feed around to cause it... is there anything else please I’m desperate I got some type of thing weather it’s OCD that’s making me have nervous breakdowns on trying to kill these little annoying things because I can’t control them and because even if I hunt them like a normal fly there’s always another and their circling my head driving me nuts
sorry for the rant and my unload Thanks for reading and helping if possible any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

 

[KezyGLA]

If there is no food waste then I suspect it is probably fungus gnats rather than phorids. They are attracted to carbon dioxide so they will tend to buzz around your face. Pretty annoying.

These are pretty harmless but are a pain in the ass. I get an outbreak of them a couple times a year.

In order to rid them. Use homemade fly traps. Sticky fly paper. And let everything dry out for a while (they breed easy in damp soil)

 

[viper69]

How do you know they are phorids?

 

[Jeremy Gareau]

I definately cannot tell the difference yet. I just thought as I read they were darting they’d be phorids I got fly traps everywhere now too. It’s great when your sitting there playing an intense video game on the boss focused and immersed then up the nose.

If there is no food waste then I suspect it is probably fungus gnats rather than phorids. They are attracted to carbon dioxide so they will tend to buzz around your face. Pretty annoying.

These are pretty harmless but are a pain in the ass. I get an outbreak of them a couple times a year.

In order to rid them. Use homemade fly traps. Sticky fly paper. And let everything dry out for a while (they breed easy in damp soil)

 

[viper69]

I definately cannot tell the difference yet. I just thought as I read they were darting they’d be phorids I got fly traps everywhere now too. It’s great when your sitting there playing an intense video game on the boss focused and immersed then up the nose.

You should ID the problem species before assuming. One is a significant problem, the other isn't.

 

[Jeremy Gareau]

How do you know they are phorids?

Haven’t done enough research to find out the differences as soon as I read darting across the soil I assumed they almost all look like fruit flies and maybe came from the pet store with the crickets at first. Until my complete rehaul I’ve now also went as far as to tape the vents and doors up to trap them away.

 

[Jeremy Gareau]

You should ID the problem species before assuming. One is a significant problem, the other isn't.

Yeah lesson well learned just hard to control sometimes. It’s my own personal feelings that really pushed the matter but to be on the safe side I did over do it as much as possible. Since I’m still fresh to a couple things I over worried about a lot of it.