fungus gnat controll, solution?

[Galapoheros]

fungus gnat control, solution?

Personally I'm not bothered by them much, I don't worry about it. But if you don't like them, this might work. I've never tried it but seems very safe to try. You could crush up a "mosquito dunk" or part of one, and mix it with your substrate if you want to control fungus gnats in your tropical setups. If you read about it, you will see that it should be harmless to your arthros, herps, whatever. I tried it with mosquitoes, it really works, a really nice product, I don't like mosquitoes!

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/mosquito-dunks.html

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/mosquito-dunks.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis_israelensis

 

[donniedark0]

It says its for mosquitos but I would love to see if it really would work for fungus gnats and other pests like that. Has anyone tried this to control something other then mosquitos?

thanks for the info, my plant tank seems to love fungus and gnats lol

Personally I'm not bothered by them much, I don't worry about it. But if you don't like them, this might work. I've never tried it but seems very safe to try. You could crush up a "mosquito dunk" or part of one, and mix it with your substrate if you want to control fungus gnats in your tropical setups. If you read about it, you will see that it should be harmless to your arthros, herps, whatever. I tried it with mosquitoes, it really works, a really nice product, I don't like mosquitoes!

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/mosquito-dunks.html

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/mosquito-dunks.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis_israelensis

 

[Galapoheros]

In the 3rd link it says the bacteria take care of fungus gnats also, worth a try I think.

 

[Bill S]

For the mosquito dunks to work on gnats you would have to get them (in the larval form) to ingest it. The active ingredient in the dunks is a bacteria that mosquito larvae ingest while they are swimming in water containing the bacteria. Since it's not a contact poison, it will not kill gnat larvae just by contacting them. I'd be cautious about putting it in your tarantula cages without knowing what effect it would have on tarantulas. The bacteria will ony live and become effective in moist areas, but a tarantula ingesting water from such a moist area would also ingest the bacteria. (This would include drinking from a water dish that some substrate fell into.) And crickets could ingest it prior to being eaten by tarantulas, providing another means of infecting the tarantula. It's possible that it would have no effect at all on tarantulas, but until you know that for sure I'd be careful.

 

[Galapoheros]

I agree with being careful. But after reading about it, I'm betting it is very safe since it's so species specific, naturally occurring also. The claim is that it is only specific to dipteran pests. You can put it with fish and aquatic arthropods with no effects on them, none that people can see anyway. A good method would be to powder a dunk or part of one and mix thoroughly with the sub. Maybe a person could use oversupply stock of a cheap T to try it on for the hobby. Well, looks like I'm late with the idea. A lot more links besides the following.


http://www.redwormcomposting.com/worm-composting/mosquito-dunk-fruit-fly-fungus-gnat-update/

http://couchlockcafe.com/showthread.php?t=1683

http://www.repotme.com/pest-control/Fungus-Gnat-Control.html

 

[donniedark0]

i did a little bit of research and found out using hydrogen peroxide will do the job great and will not harm your plants. I dont know about harming the tarantula but I im pretty sure it might be fine , cause the hydrogen peroxide eventually breaks down into just oxygen and water after a while. something to look into.

http://www.freeplants.com/fungus-gnats.htm

 

[Bill S]

i did a little bit of research and found out using hydrogen peroxide will do the job great and will not harm your plants. I dont know about harming the tarantula but I im pretty sure it might be fine....

Hydrogen peroxide would be toxic to the tarantula if it drank it. Since tarantulas sometimes do drink water from the substrate, they could just as easily drink hydrogen peroxide from moist substrate. However, hydrogen peroxide breaks down in a short time, so if you just wanted to disinfect the cage you could temporarily house the tarantula in a different cage while you treated the infested cage. (Maybe for a week or so.)

Seems like a much too involved way to handle the situation, though. If you are comfortable with the safety of mosquito dunks, they'd be easier to work with. But instead of crumbling them up and mixing with the substrate, you could soak one in water for a couple days and spray the solution onto the plants/substrate. The way they work is that they slowly release the bacteria into the water where it multiplies and gets ingested by the target insects.