Little flies in tarantula tank?

[KaylaJo96]

Last night I noticed a bunch of little gnat-looking flies in the tank and I'm worried. They seem to behave like scuttle flies, moving around erratically instead of instantly flying away when I wave at them (although they do fly away sometimes/eventually), but I feel I may just be overreacting because I'm a worrywart- and they look more like gnats than they do scuttle flies.

I did notice some dead crickets in little corners of the cage, crickets I bought the first week of October, so I wonder if maybe the flies came in on them? I'm pretty sure the flies weren't swarming around in the cage until at most three days ago, though.

My tarantula (~4-5 years old, G. pulchripes) molted between 10/13 and 10/18, so if I were to gently nudge her into a separate container and then replace the substrate and really clean the cage (with spider-safe supplies, of course ) would that be advised (I assume it should be safe to interact with her and it not be too stressful by now?), or should I just assume the flies are harmless and just let them die out over the next few weeks?

Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. I'll check the thread when I get off work today and from there decide if I need to stop at the store to pick up new substrate and go to town on cleaning the tank or if I should stop being so worried and deal with some flies for a while.

 

[Keith B]

I've had this once before. Crickets won't bring flies into your cage. There's usually only two circumstances that bring flies into the house. One is bad, and definitely not your problem. That would be phorid flies from shipping in some WC tropical species. Your problem is simply your choice of substrate, or a local pest. If you chose potting soil, some of the more natural blends sometimes come with a random colony of fungus gnats. Some other soils sometimes do, but potting soil is the most common. I used potting soil once as advice from TKG because my G. rosea is a rare burrower. She's still using that soil because I exterminated them. They are totally harmless to the tarantula, and simply pesky to you. They can be a royal pain to get rid of without changing the substrate, but you don't have to. You have a dry species so eliminating them is easy enough. You don't have to change the substrate, just let it dry out. They dig in to the damp soil to lay their eggs and breed. You can pour a layer of dry soil over the wet, which will not allow the larvae to surface and they die, but it can be stressful to the T. The larvae are similar to mites in one facet, that they dessicate quickly without a good water source (the water dish isn't enough, they like soil). Let the top layers of substrate dry out completely, and in a week or two after that they'll disappear. harmless pests, but they breed ridiculously if given the conditions. Best of luck!

 

[SuzukiSwift]

Personally I wouldn't worry about it, but seeing lots of flies in my Ts enclosure would bother and annoy me lol If I were you I would give the Ts enclosure a complete clean-up, depending on the last time it was cleaned out, Ts dont like being stressed out

 

[KaylaJo96]

Thanks for the advice, everyone! Took the water dish out last night and did mix up that wet substrate with the dry surrounding it. Saw no flies land on her or even really flying/walking around her, so she should be fine. Thanks for calming my worries! Will check the thread later too.

 

[Roktman]

If there's room you could try those yellow stick traps to get the flies -

The flies can't resist and even if you just use a small piece of the trap - the gnats are attracted to the yellow.
Just make sure it's in a spot where your T won't get stuck.
Then check your husbandry practices.

 

[Keith B]

They tend to leave the T alone. Only if they're allowed to get wayyyy out of hand and crowded might they bother the T. Their ultimate goal is to get out of the cage through the screen and go elsewhere (They especially love household potted plants.. they feed on fungus, so unless your cage is growing it they'll try to find some). If your screen is wide enough you'll see them flying all about in the room. Most of them are too stupid to find their way to the top, so the adults that get stuck just in the enclosure breed and breed on the moist soil.

---------- Post added 10-31-2013 at 01:11 PM ----------

If there's room you could try those yellow stick traps to get the flies -

The flies can't resist and even if you just use a small piece of the trap - the gnats are attracted to the yellow.
Just make sure it's in a spot where your T won't get stuck.
Then check your husbandry practices.

Read about this and put it to practice when I had the issue, which was a couple years ago. Was entirely ineffective. Only 1 gnat landed on the trap and walked across it like it wasn't sticky. For some reason fungus gnats don't seem to take any interest in yellow like other flies

 

[T Freak]

What about isopods and springtails being in the tank too, will that help to decline the numbers of the gnats?

 

[DevinWyldeheart]

What about isopods and springtails being in the tank too, will that help to decline the numbers of the gnats?

I was having a problem similar to this in my isopod tank and put a fruit fly trap in. I had tried the sticky fly traps but they weren't attracted to it, as mentioned previously. The fruit fly trap didn't seem to do anything but once my springtails became more numerous the flies died out and they haven't seemed to come back since then.

 

[arthurliuyz]

Tiny flying insects in my geniculata's enclosure

Today when I went to check my genic's enclosure, I found that there are a few teeny tiny flying insects (so tiny that on camera it just looks like tiny black blurry dots) in its enclosure tho it doesn't seem bothered by them. Are they harmful? P.S. upon closer examination they seem to be phorid...

arachnoboards.com

 

[T Freak]

How can yu tell the difference between phorid and the other ones? I heard the phorid was bad news.