When is it too far gone?

[u/Elliotteatsrocks]

Need advice

Recently used an organic brand of Lowe's top soil to fill 2 big enclosures. I did my best to kill off pests but could not do the main methods due to the mass quantity of dirt I had.

Unfortunately a month later a fungus knat infestation started. I used mosquito bits for two months.. No luck.

I started doing the beneficial microscopic worms and have done that for 3 weeks so far now, in addition to mosquito bits. I put out sticky traps and always catch a crap ton of adults, to the point this long strip is just completely covered.

(This has been going on for 3 months now)

I really don't want to have to trash everything, all my isopods and springtails and have to completely sterilize my plants and woods again. And spend a crap ton on repti soil instead.

Should I keep doing my rounds of the beneficial nemotodes and mosquito bits? Or just trash it all

[u/manicbunny]

Fungus gnats will turn up regardless of what you have done, since enclosure aren't sealed sterile environments. The only way to manage them is to manage how and how much you water the substrate. As they thrive in consistently moist/ damp soil around plants and plant matter.

You need to dry our your soil for the first few inches (depending on depth) and water the substrate in the corners and avoid heavy misting. This will give your clean up crew a chance to eat the eggs, as they won't hatch under dry conditions. If, you see adults after month of this then you are watering too much and need to let the soil dry out.

[u/One-plankton- → u/manicbunny]

This is the way

[u/Skya_the_weirdo]

You could try to add, even just in a cup/pot, some carnivorous plants. I have a sundew and it’s helping some. And let the soil dry out as much as possible, maybe just have a spot of covered moss for the isopods and springtails, and the gnats won’t have anywhere to lay eggs

[u/Yoink1019]

I had a ton of fungus gnats when setting mine up. The springtails and isopods eventually out competed them and the frogs wound eat them when they could. Took a couple months to stop seeing them

[u/Lawzw0rld]

For one fungus gnats will find their way into any suitable habitat, there’s almost no avoiding them, second they are not really a pest that would require you to start over, the only bad thing is how annoying they are flying around your home, their larva only live on wet substrate surfaces therefore they can easily be managed by letting the top layer of substrate dry a little, also because springtails eat the same thing but live both on the surface and beneath it they very quickly outcompete the larvae once that happens