Fungus gnat problems

[Arthropod Universe]

I have a few isopod colonies mostly my panda king isopod colony that have fungus gnat problems and I want to know if there is a species that can cohab with isopods without problems that can also eat the fungus gnats and is widely available

 

[Hisserdude]

Predatory mites are the best inverts for controlling fungus gnats IMO, and they won't bother isopods at all.

 

[Arthropod Universe]

Do you know where I can get some mites from

 

[worldsparadox]

Do you know where I can get some mites from

I order mine from ebay/amazon

 

[curtisgiganteus]

The cool thing about the mites is that once the food source is gone, they eventually die off too. No population explosion issues

 

[Arthropod Universe]

What species should I get? Do all species work the same?

 

[l4nsky]

The cool thing about the mites is that once the food source is gone, they eventually die off too. No population explosion issues

Yes and no. If used indoors, it'll take years IME. I ordered some to treat a S. dehaani with phoreric mites back in late 2018 or so and I've just started to see springtails again in my enclosures this year (H. miles will exterminate them as well). Predatory mites work extremely well at controlling all kinds of 'pests', but there is a cost to they're use.

https://arachnoboards.com/threads/predatory-mite-question.315892/

Edit: I keep a lot of moisture dependent tarantulas and plants. Translation - I have a lot of moist dirt at any one point in time. It's pretty much a given that there will always be fungus gnats or phorid flies around (it's pretty unrealistic at this point to be able to dry everything down at once even if that was a long term solution). I've found using UV traps to keep their population in check is the most efficient way of dealing with them. I have a small, fan powered trap near my greenhouse and a larger wall trap designed for a restaurant in my T room. Both are amazingly effective.

 

[curtisgiganteus]

Yes and no. If used indoors, it'll take years IME. I ordered some to treat a S. dehaani with phoreric mites back in late 2018 or so and I've just started to see springtails again in my enclosures this year (H. miles will exterminate them as well). Predatory mites work extremely well at controlling all kinds of 'pests', but there is a cost to they're use.

https://arachnoboards.com/threads/predatory-mite-question.315892/

Good to know, a lot of the articles I e read on them don’t tell you that.

 

[l4nsky]

Good to know, a lot of the articles I e read on them don’t tell you that.

Because most of the guides written for them are geared towards horticulturists that use them outdoors or semi-outdoors (greenhouse). In those situations, they're almost always 'one and done' since the lightweight eggs get blown away.

 

[pinkjacket]

1. As mentioned prior, the UV traps work wonders. Completely eradicated the problem in one of my animal rooms.
2. In my other animal room, I still have a large problem (due to extremely large enclosures always being wet, it became a problem quickly). When it gets to a certain scale, the UV traps only work so much. IME a combination of the UV fans + those fly things that hang down in a spiral that are sticky traps + mosquito bits solves it quite nicely. I still have the problem in specific enclosures, with less airflow, but they're very isolated and I don't have any problems whilst just walking around. Mosquito bits ONLY kill fungus gnats, fruit flies, and mosquitoes in my experience. I've never had any issues with any of my tarantulas, scorpions, snails, millipedes, etc. What I do is put the mosquito bits in some water and mix it up until they dissolve (can take some time), and then put that water in a mister. If you just put the bits in the mister then you will constantly end up with a plugged up mister and it really sucks, lol.