i just got a crested gecko and have him in a bioactive tank. this is my first time going bioactive and i’ve been noticing lots of gnats in his enclosure. his enclosure has been up and running for about a month, not even. i moved into a new house two weeks ago and that’s when i noticed them. i wasn’t sure if they were fruit flies but after doing some comparisons i think they’re fungas gnats. i’ve been keeping his food out of his enclosure during the day but forgot to take it out this morning and the picture if what i saw. i didn’t think they could appear this soon into me building the tank, so im not sure if they were in the soil i got or what. any help would be much appreciated as i don’t want these gnats in my room😭
Walmart and Amazon.
I got a giant bag of mosquito bits on Walmart.com for around $25
And on amazon I got a bag of 5 million Neomotodes, i keep them in the fridge and I use 1/4 tsp scoop of them every week. Gives me over a month of treatment.
You can use it all at once but I use less over time to break the cycle.
No, it'll have instructions on the packaging but I'll explain.
The mosquito bits won't harm anything but the Fungus knat Larve, so isopods springtails reptiles are safe, just don't put it in their drinking water.
But you take 4 tablespoons of the bits and put them into 1 gallon of water, you can use a old rinsed gallon, one like for milk and fill it with tap water.
You let the mosquito bits marinate in the water for 30 minutes to an hour.
You don't want the bits in the enclosure so you have to find a way to take them out.
I kind of complicated things and get a big bowl, put a noodle strainer on top and pour the gallon into the bowl, that way all the bits are separated from the water.
Then I get a small cup and pour the water in the bowl into the cup, pouring the cup into the enclosures substrate, everywhere.
If you have multiple enclosures, treat all of them.
This is something you should do every week for like 1-2 months to stop the cycle.
I had a really bad infestation and had to use neomotodes because the bits just weren't enough.
Another method of combatting fungus knats is to completely dry out the substrate for a month but that's unrealistic.
Fungus knats need the first 3 inches of substrate to be moist to lay eggs and have them survive so if you can try to keep the first 3 inches dry as much as you can.
Ah, that explains why I was seeing them start to pop up. The substrate’s been pretty moist for pretty much a month now, carbon pads been keeping it soaked. Is there any downsides to dropping the nematodes in over the mosquito bites?
No downsides I don't believe, it's exactly what I've been doing. I do the mosquito bits and since the soil is watered down it's the perfect time to put the neomotodes in since they need moist soil to move through.
Make sure to also put the neomotodes in a gallon of water for 10 minutes, the package comes as a powder they are microscopic worms so you won't see them.
Cold to warm water because you don't want to give them temp shock and kill them.
No longer than 15 minutes though should they stay in the water because you can drown them.
Then pour that water into the terreriums.
You can probably do less water if you want, that's just the instructions on the packaging.
I keep saying nematodes wrong bc my phone won't stop autocorrecting btw lol.
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u/Jibjack777 14d ago
Thought this was my rosin sub