Fungus Gnats with scorpions

[GreekPrince]

I seem to have had a really horrible outbreak of fungus gnats, bout a few bags of soil and they must have had loads of larvae in them as they've started to spread inside all of the enclosures I have.
For reference I have over 300, mostly tropical species.
I have tried letting the terrariums dry out, and an abundance of sticky yellow traps in and around the terrariums but they seem to still be multiplying, it's been a month or so of this.

It's gotten to the point where I don't want to take the lid off anything for fear of having 20-30 of them escape into the room, I have to keep a hoover handy above the terrarium for when I open the lid to any of them.

Has anyone had any luck getting rid of them? I have so many enclosures i'm finding a solution to be really difficult.

 

[BoyFromLA]

It took me six months.

1. I took out every single enclosure outside and open to have any flies inside of it to fly out.
2. I rehoused almost every enclosures with new substrates.
3. I set the yellow sticky traps all over like 7 or 8 of them and changed to new ones every other week.

Even then it took six months. Slowly, but surely.

 

[TheraMygale]

You have a lot of enclosures. That is what makes it harder and longer.

I have less then 20 enclosures. I noticed them about two weeks ago. Put up the traps. On top of the two suspect enclosures. Then i went inside the enclosures and noticed which one was the culprit. They were in the sphagnum moss.

I redid the entire enclosure. Bagged all the dirt. Put up more traps. Just inject moisture near the burrows with holes that are predrilled in the substrate. I use less moss now.

No more gnats. In less then a month. They did not go into my other enclosures. I suspect eggs were dormant in the moss.

It is more complicated when you have that many enclosures. Drying out will help but sometimes it is not enough.

If you spot which enclosures are the worst, i would start by cleaning those out.

I have tarantulas, mostly NW with UrS. So i don’t like having to mess around
Substrate at all. But in my case, i dont have many. So it worked. And i got to the issue in the begining.

I also put traps everywhere in the house, especialy the kitchen. I take out the garbage more often.

Keep doing the traps. Add more then less. Everywhere. When you clean an enclosure, cover it with some kind if mesh. To prevent anything else from getting in. If they are still in there, they will not get out and you will see where the source is.

Food chunks like potato and mushroom
on the soil will attract the larva and you can then throw them out. I did not bother going there. I just changed the entire enclosure.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

DIY fly traps killed off my flies , but a few years ago I had phorid flies which costed me hundreds of dollars in Ts and roaches. They were almost impossible to killl off.

 

[drurymercy]

DIY fly traps killed off my flies , but a few years ago I had phorid flies which costed me hundreds of dollars in Ts and roaches. They were almost impossible to killl off.

Was it like this? I didn’t realize we had them here!! Is it common? I see flightless fruit flies in my enclousures they escape from my jumpers sometimes, do u have a pic of one so I can understand size of them or are they bigger or smaller than fruit flies? Thank u. I’m sorry u list so many I would have been so upset!!

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Was it like this? I didn’t realize we had them here!! Is it common? I see flightless fruit flies in my enclousures they escape from my jumpers sometimes, do u have a pic of one so I can understand size of them or are they bigger or smaller than fruit flies? Thank u. I’m sorry u list so many I would have been so upset!!

same size but they run they are more likely to run around rather than fly.
Well I lost both firelegs but only got pics of one in this thread possibly more Ts I can’t remember. But my collection never recovered due to inability to find a job .
It eradicated my roaches I had to buy a new colony last year. I was feeding super worms for a few years .

Fly invasion???! Do flies attack Ts?

mystery death of b boiehme Mexican fireleg and swarms of flys and , pupae of flys stuck everywhere? Are these something other then fruit fly? They been attacking my dubia also. Never seen anything like this . Took container outside as a precaution. Spider was alive less then a week ago my last...

arachnoboards.com

 

[drurymercy]

same size but they run they are more likely to run around rather than fly.
Well I lost both firelegs but only got pics of one in this thread possibly more Ts I can’t remember. But my collection never recovered due to inability to find a job .
It eradicated my roaches I had to buy a new colony last year. I was feeding super worms for a few years .

Fly invasion???! Do flies attack Ts?

mystery death of b boiehme Mexican fireleg and swarms of flys and , pupae of flys stuck everywhere? Are these something other then fruit fly? They been attacking my dubia also. Never seen anything like this . Took container outside as a precaution. Spider was alive less then a week ago my last...

arachnoboards.com

Your fireleg was gorgeous. Thanks for sharing the flies and the eggs or maggots were bigger then I visualized but still small. But now I can the difference between FF and phorid flies. So crazy it wiped out your whole colony but after reading how much food opportunities there is in the dubia tanks I can see why.

 

[GreekPrince]

Thanks for the help everyone, I found the culprit, it was a new bag of soil I used. I like the soil so much I changed maybe 10-15 of them for the new substrate. Apparently there was larvae dormant in the soil and upon watering they all started to hatch.
It is in these enclosures where the gnats are going crazy. I'm gonna change out the substrate in these enclosures and add some stickers to see if it helps.

 

[darkness975]

Thanks for the help everyone, I found the culprit, it was a new bag of soil I used. I like the soil so much I changed maybe 10-15 of them for the new substrate. Apparently there was larvae dormant in the soil and upon watering they all started to hatch.
It is in these enclosures where the gnats are going crazy. I'm gonna change out the substrate in these enclosures and add some stickers to see if it helps.

That's a good plan.