Indoor when to transplant

[VanishingToaster]

also seen a few small flies flying around, seen a couple crawling on the soil, they look like regular uk flies only smaller with oversized wings. they aren't in any other room of the house. do these sound close to anything i might need to worry about? i'm goin to get some fly paper and wrap it around the side of the pots. that shouldn't cause any harm should it ?

 

[whatsgoodie]

You can do that with fly paper, sure - usually most growers reccomend to have a fly strip up no matter what. I typically run 2-3 of them + 1 in the veg cab. I've stopped whiteflies that way. Twice.

They sound possibly like fungus gnats, they look anything like this?

 

[VanishingToaster]

the wings seemed squarer, fast little fuckers could only get a blurry pic. my humidity is rarely above 50% and usually around mid 40's, temperature fluxes slightly 19'c at "nite" and 21-24'c the rest of the time.

 

[whatsgoodie]

Hard to tell with that picture.. could be a UFO!

What color are they? My humidity is never above 45% unless I water and I still get the damn aphids because I live on a farm. There's many possibilities!

 

[VanishingToaster]

yeah its just a spick, best i could get. tried to tune it up and the body looks quite evenly oval, but i have seen them running in and around the soil, been googling the shit outta them and its not looking great. does this really mean i've got rotting roots? can i put sand through the soil? even as i'm asking that i'm not sure how i'd even go about it... bugger

 

[VanishingToaster]

still a useless pic haha . would an overly sandy topsoil of a cm or two make a difference? probably goin to have to remove the current top soil... jus thinking out loud, or panicin out loud more like. fly paper wont clean em out permanently will it? going to really have to watch my watering, was letting the soil nearly dry out and watering till water ran out, clearly not the way to go :/

 

[whatsgoodie]

Hang fly paper / traps, let the soil dry up some. I still say it's fungus gnats! Can't tell from the pictures, but crawling "in and on" the soil usually means fungus gnats... Is the soil consistently damp / wet?

Adult fungus gnats are tiny black flies which spend time running around on the surfaces and sucking sap from the leaves. After the adults lay their eggs on the soil (medium), the young worm-like larvae hatch out and begin to feed upon the roots. The larvae initially eat the fine root hairs before moving on to burrow throughout the larger roots and even up into the stems. After feasting on the roots the larvae will pupate before hatching out as adults and repeating the life cycle by laying their eggs. The larvae resemble little worms. They have clear or white bodies with black heads.

Life cycle: Adults live about 7 to 10 days and deposit eggs on the moist soil surface or in soil cracks. Females lay up to 100 to 300 eggs in batches of 2 to 30 each in decaying organic matter. Eggs hatch in 4 to 6 days; larvae feed for 12 to 14 days. The pupal stage is about 5 to 6 days.

Damage from the fungus gnat larvae feeding on the roots shows up in the leaves as overfertilization and nutrient deficiency symptoms: yellowing, browning, burning and curling leaves.

Three fungus gnat larvae biocontrol agents:

Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti) bacteria which can be purchased as mosquito dunks or gnatrol. Bti is the most appropriate anti gnat biological control agent for DWC systems.

Hypoaspis mites.

Steinernema feltiae nematodes.

Occasionally a dry layer of sand is recommended as a deterrent to fungus gnats. This technique should be discouraged as the close packing nature of the sand particles reduces the quantity of oxygen which penetrates down into the root zone.

Don't panic yet though.. they start off small and are fairly easy to control.

Mosquito Dunks or Bacillus thuringiensis isreali (Bti) is a natural bacterium that produces a larvacide which is toxic only to a handful of species of insect larvae including fungus gnats and mosquitoes. It is widely available in compressed circular pucks under the brand name Mosquito Dunks, sold in most home improvement centers. They also sell Mosquito Bits, which is the same thing and another brand is Gnatrol, but these products are usually less available. If you get dunks you use them by soaking in a bucket of water over night and irrigating. This should kill most of the larvae; although it is best used to prevent a gnat population from taking hold in the first place. If you already are infested this is still a very necessary step in order to kill the larval stages of the gnats.

Re-apply every two weeks even when you don't see adults.

 

[whatsgoodie]

You sure the soil was dry? What's your method of assuming this? (If you don't mind me asking).. Also they can be in soil sometimes before hand. I got some potting soil from a local nursery that was infested with larvae..

If all else fails or this is too much for you..
.
FoxFarm POWER!

Fox Farm - Don't Bug Me


Apply once a week for 3 weeks. Spray a little on top of the soil too (what I did) and anywhere you see the gnats congregating.

 

[VanishingToaster]

i'm sticking my finger bout an inch into the soil and checking the moisture that way.

i kinda ploughed into this without doing much research initially and got moisture control Miracle gro soil. it does seem to hold the water quite well, possibly too well.

i'm thinking its them now too, had 6 or 7 the other day and i think i've killed them all, tried nudging and tapping my pots to find more but couldn't see any. 5am now shops open at 9 i'll be there. dont suppose you know if they are uk brands? i'll take a note of that bacterium.

thank you for your help, its really appreciated. i'll post again when i've got my kit in place

 

[whatsgoodie]

Ahhh, mircale grow moisture control.. that's the home for fungus gnats. That's like their duplex.

Have to be careful watering with that soil, it BREEDS these things. Anything that's pytherium based is good to spray - the bacterium is for watering to kill larvae, if you do the pytherium and watering trick it'll stop them dead in their tracks.

Bacterium in the UK is called Gnat Off or something like that... it's the replacement to Gnatrol.

http://www.hydrohobby.co.uk/product/gnat_off/

Yeah, Gnat Off.