Gnats!!! in my T's cage

[kevinarmour]

Right now i just got my T.stirmi acting right and drinking since she was stressed for a about 3 weeks after i bought her, but now there are little Gnats in her cage, i figured they are eating the plant material in the cage but i see them on her and i really dont want them to stress her out becasue she finally started to drink, so i dont know if i should leave them alone or try to change the substrate out or just let the humidity level go down a bit, because when i first bought it before i put it in her cage i baked it in the oven for about an hour at 450 degrees to try to kill anything that was in the soil.

Photos attached of the Gnats


what should i do

 

[SpakR]

It looks like the substrate is way too moist. Fungus gnats and other flying PoS's are attracted to moisture so that would be my first fix. The fact that youre seeing them on the T has me concerned. Normally they tend to accumilate around decaying matter, fungus gnat larva eat plant root systems (if you havent cleaned out any remains this could help clear out some of them). Often times, even if you bake the substrate it will not prevent gnats coming in from another source, ie. potted plants that are nearby that have them. Maybe, someone can give precise steps to help out on top of what I mentioned. Worse case is to remove substrate and start over, but that would stress out the T for another week or so.

Peace

 

[Spinster]

Those look like live plants you have in the terrarium, yes? They can be a source of fungus gnats. You can go to a local plant nursery and buy kits of yellow sticky stuff on sticks that you place in the soil, to capture and kill the adult gnats. The yellow colour attracts them. The sticks should be tall enough that your T won't be harmed. BTW the adult gnats don't bite.

Their grubs feed on the roots of your live plants, and on decaying plant matter. Let the soil dry out completely (or at least the top couple of inches) between waterings of your plants, this will kill the gnat grubs in the soil and stop their life cycle. You may want to consider removing the live plants and replacing them with fake ones, if the suggestions I have given don't work.

Here is a page with more details on gnat control. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05584.html I'd be wary of using nematodes or bacterial control methods in case they could affect your T, but more experienced people could weigh in on this.

 

[Stan Schultz]

Right now i just got my T.stirmi acting right and drinking since she was stressed for a about 3 weeks after i bought her, but now there are little Gnats in her cage, i figured they are eating the plant material in the cage but i see them on her and i really dont want them to stress her out becasue she finally started to drink, so i dont know if i should leave them alone or try to change the substrate out or just let the humidity level go down a bit, ...

First, you need to understand that there are at least two different operating philosophies where caring for tarantulas are concerned. You can keep them in a natural and organic, toy utopia with plants, decorative rocks, waterfalls, and little garden gnomes, etc. Or, you can keep them in an austere, uninteresting, bland life support style cage. And, of course, these are just the end points of a wide spectrum of different levels of boring to wild that you could choose.

So, I would strongly urge you to read Natural Is Better: A Myth Perpetuated by Tarantula Enthusiasts to give you some idea of what you're doing.

Experienced enthusiasts who develop a basic understanding of tarantula care before they blow the hard earned cash for such a difficult-to-keep tarantula either already know what to do about fungus gnats, or how to keep T. stirmi to avoid them. So, I'm guessing you're a relative newbie. And, getting one of these tarantulas may have been a big mistake.

T. stirmi, like T. blondi requires a damp cage. The wild caught adults apparently have to go through the same acclimatization as T. blondi, and in fact, for a while they were thought to be the same species. The cage bred individuals on the market today have never known wild conditions and come to you pre-acclimatized, but they still require rather special care and constant attention to make sure they aren't preparing to crash and burn.

Whenever you try to keep any tarantula that requires a damp cage you're going to have to deal with all sorts of infestations and infections. You're lucky in that your problem is only fungus gnats this time. There are far worse things lurking out there that you might have had to deal with. Most of those of us with years of experience keeping the so-called swamp dwellers have given up on the toy utopia thing and reverted to keeping them in a rather simple, life support cage: aquarium, non-ventilating cover (keeps the humidity in), damp (not wet!) peat for substrate (some use shredded coconut husk but IMO it tends to mold too fast), a LARGE water dish, something to hide in or under. And, we set up a second cage identical to the first, but we keep it bone dry. We store the second cage someplace out of the way. When we have problems with gnats, mites, nematodes, mushrooms, etc. we can wet down the new cage and switch the tarantula in less than 10 minutes. The old, dirty, infested cage is cleaned/sanitized as soon as we get a chance, set up dry again, and stored until the next crisis.

... because when i first bought it before i put it in her cage i baked it in the oven for about an hour at 450 degrees to try to kill anything that was in the soil. ...

This was a waste of time and may have posed a serious danger to you, your family or roommates, and maybe the whole block. Baking, gassing with ethylene oxide, bleaching, and a bunch of other Herculean efforts to sanitize a cage are outright dangerous, and outright useless unless you're trying to suppress an Andromeda Strain type outbreak. Merely cleaning a cage with mild soap and warm water will almost always knock down anything you may encounter.

Every time you open the cage to feed or clean you reintroduce all the things on your hands that you tried to kill. And, the plants are literally crawling with microbes. And, the dust that wafts into the cage while you have the cover open is 50% creepy crawly eggs and spores. And, the food that you give the tarantula came from that most sanitary and sterile environment on the planet: your local, neighborhood, pet shop!

And, ([SIZE=+1]BUSTED![/size]) this indicates that you really don't know what you're doing. Please read Stan's Rant. HEED THE WARNINGS! READ THE BOOKS!

All right, so I've been pretty hard on you. Consider that a friend who tells you the truth is a lot better than a buddy who kills you with a lie. Now that you know what you're up against, and how little you really know about what you're doing, maybe you'll read those books to bring you up to speed before you kill the tarantula.

And what do you do to get rid of the gnats? You clean the cage and set the new one up a little dryer. But not too dry. Your T. stirmi still needs a fair amount of humidity.

Best of luck.

 

[kevinarmour]

ok well thanks for the info since you think that i have no idea about what im doing... Actually before i purchased the spider i did read several books and did research for about a year to a year and a half, and some of the books i was reading said that baking the dirt was ok, even though i have never done it with any of my other tarantulas i was just wanting to play it safe with this one since it is a more difficult breed; and yes i do know that there are eggs and other things in the air with dust in not completely stupid, i only wanted to make sure nothing harmful was going to be going into her cage. As far as the gnats go i do have one of my other tarantula cages set up as a natural environment and it does stay moist not wet, with a good humidity level and i have had her for about 11 years and my King baboon for about 6 years and i have never had issues with gnats, not even in my carnivorous plant set up; because the plants that i do use in my other cages i grow myself, but this one time i bought some plants from my local nursery for her cage and im pretty sure that the gnat larva was in the soil that came from there. Needless to say i have taken care of the gnat problem and i was able to balance out the humidity and moisture level but i will be changing the substrate out and putting fresh new substrate back in and probably some nice fake plants or just the plants that I've been using for years in my other cages. I did purchase two of the books that you recommended and look forward to adding them to my collection. But i am not one of these people that will go out buy a tarantula or any exotic pet with out doing a fair amount of research and reading on the subject. The only reason i was posting about the gnats because most of the books really only mention them and don't really go into detail about getting rid of them...That's why I tend to avoid forums so people will not just assume that i have no idea what I'm doing just because i ask a general question. Looking forward to checking out the books, can't wait to see how much detail they will go into about the birding eating tarantula family.

 

[SpakR]

Man Pikaia, I wonder if your advice was an attempt to help or just a left handed way of insulting someone. You said " a friend who tells you the truth is a lot better than a buddy who kills you with a lie". I surmise you mean a douchebag who tells you the truth is a lot better than a friend who kills you with a lie. Unfortunately, truth is relative and I would always prefer a friend speaking the truth than a douchbag (ie speak the truth in love). Anyways, maybe I am wrong, but if someone has a question and wants to post it, why bash them for it. Yes you may have heard the question a trillion times, and yes you may have written volumes and volumes of books on arachoculture and arachoscience (?, that's funny), but take it easy. You were a noob once in your life. Who knows you still may be a noob, but with years of noob experience.

One thing I have learned in raising T's, (and I am not saying that I am an expert or an authority on the subject) is there is no right way of raising them. Sure there are definite don'ts, which should be common sense, but for the most part T's are adaptable and pretty resilient and do not require the militant care regime to make them survive or thrive. They do fine. Living in a cage with set controls (temp, food, water, etc) should be a cake walk for T's. Everything else is just conjecture and opinion.

Anyways, back on topic, Kevin, like I said... Beginning my opinion piece... your cage is too damp. If anything try to keep one side of the cage damp and the other dry, or just have a larger water dish. That way there is some variety that the T can move around in depending on its needs. In addition, it you want to keep plants, you can wash out the root ball and remove all soil as this is the normal means of contamination. Happens all the time with me and I've found washing out the root ball helps. Even if you remove the substrate and wash the root ball you may still have issues with the gnats (that's why I hate them). Even in a Spartan cage if kept too moist it will attract the bastards. Good luck with your T man.

Peace Out

And Peace to you, Pikaia, my Delusions of Grandeur friend (not an opinion, unfortunately true)

 

[Stan Schultz]

ok well thanks for the info since you think that i have no idea about what im doing... Actually before i purchased the spider i did read several books and did research for about a year to a year and a half, and some of the books i was reading said that baking the dirt was ok, even though i have never done it with any of my other tarantulas i was just wanting to play it safe with this one since it is a more difficult breed; and yes i do know that there are eggs and other things in the air with dust in not completely stupid, i only wanted to make sure nothing harmful was going to be going into her cage. As far as the gnats go i do have one of my other tarantula cages set up as a natural environment and it does stay moist not wet, with a good humidity level and i have had her for about 11 years and my King baboon for about 6 years and i have never had issues with gnats, not even in my carnivorous plant set up; because the plants that i do use in my other cages i grow myself, but this one time i bought some plants from my local nursery for her cage and im pretty sure that the gnat larva was in the soil that came from there. Needless to say i have taken care of the gnat problem and i was able to balance out the humidity and moisture level but i will be changing the substrate out and putting fresh new substrate back in and probably some nice fake plants or just the plants that I've been using for years in my other cages. I did purchase two of the books that you recommended and look forward to adding them to my collection. But i am not one of these people that will go out buy a tarantula or any exotic pet with out doing a fair amount of research and reading on the subject. The only reason i was posting about the gnats because most of the books really only mention them and don't really go into detail about getting rid of them...That's why I tend to avoid forums so people will not just assume that i have no idea what I'm doing just because i ask a general question. Looking forward to checking out the books, can't wait to see how much detail they will go into about the birding eating tarantula family.

Ooops! Sounds like I got my foot in it!

But, if you'd told us about all this on your original posting I'd have adopted a completely different tact. It just sounded SOOOoooo newbie! Sorry. (Go back and reread it from our point of view, not knowing anything about you beforehand.)

And, when you sound so much the newbie we have little more to go on than that you sound like a newbie! It isn't necessarily an automatic assumption. One might almost (but not quite) think that we'd been tricked into it. Sorry again.

Lastly on this vein, many of us have been on these and a bunch of other forums for a couple of decades. And, we've seen the same stupid stunts (e.g., someone with absolutely no experience or common sense paying $200 for a T. blondi as their first tarantula) over and over so many times, that unless we're given some hint that the OP has some experience about something that's so basic as gnats, we automatically jump to the obvious conclusion. What else would you do? So, sorry yet again.

No offense intended. Can we still be friends?

About the books telling you to bake the substrate: If any fool can publish an Internet care sheet, I guess almost any idiot can also publish something as foolish between two paper covers. Other than posting a query about some practice on these or other forums, I don't know what to tell you about sorting out the bad books from the good. While you might point out that my people skills may leave a little to be desired, I've had enough experience in biology over the last many decades to be able to usually pick out the charlatans within the first few pages. I know perhaps a hundred or so others on these lists with the same skills. (And yes, there are lots more out there, but they often don't make themselves very visible.) But what the average enthusiast can do about the issue is a big problem. (I generally do not comment directly on other books for fear of getting into a pointless but damaging mud slinging contest.)

It's been a few years since I read the four recommended books, my memory isn't what it used to be, and my copies of the books (except TKG3) are currently in storage 2,400 miles away. So, I can't immediately check on them. Did any of them tell you to bake the substrate? I hope not. (There have been one or two cases where baking the substrate almost caused, or did cause a fire!)

Lastly, avoiding these forums is a personal choice you have to make for yourself. But, by avoiding them you tend to miss out on a lot of things that are happening as this unusually dynamic hobby advances. You shouldn't hide in a cave with your tarantula simply because some grouchy old curmudgeon jumps down your throat!

Remember what I said, "Consider that a friend who tells you the truth is a lot better than a buddy who kills you with a lie."

(Edit: Or was that quote supposed to read "Consider that a friend who wounds you with the truth is a lot better than a buddy who kills you with a lie." It's my memory again!