Soil drench for fungus gnats

doug mirabelli

Well-Known Member
My 2 cents: gnatnix isn't a viable option in my experience. Try beneficial predators.

Chunky stool is on point.

Gnatnix is dusty. I use fans below the canopy, and became very concerned about the fans blowing dust up and onto flowers. In the end, I couldn't take the risk.

Are you doing hydro or soil? A convention often repeated is, if you have gnats, let the soil dry out significantly, then let the soil dry out in between watering. Drying out the top of the soil creates an inhospitable environment for the fungus gnat larva, disrupting the life cycle of the fungus gnat.

But there's a delicate balance. I often couldn't dry the soil out enough to completely eradicate the fungus gnat larva, thus the adults. Also, drying the soil out so much seemed to impact my growth. It's not that I noticed significantly less growth between traditional water from top or bottom methods and letting the pot dry out enough to kill the gnats. It's that once I started using a SIPS pot, which creates a constant level of soil moisture and avoids the drying cycle, my growth exploded.

You're already where you are. Many people speak highly of gnatnix. After throwing away the entire half of a canopy due to concerns about gnatnix drifting up and settling on flowers, I decided to figure something else out.

I use predator mites like rove beetles and hypoapsis miles/mites. I have used nematods; it's possible they are still there, but I can't tell.

I've had the same crop of rove beetles for nearly a year and a half. I chopped, put the smart pots in trash bags for a few months, opened the bags and saw that the rove beetles survived. Every time I transplant something into another pot, I put a few rove beetles into the new mix.

Grab some sticky traps; put fans below your canopy, blowing on top of the soil; use and repopulate new pots with predators.

I'd hope you can salvage this one, and that in the future you can keep populations down.

I wish more people would look at this issue with me:

for anyone that has every moved their hand through a bag of gnatnix or tried to put that stuff in pots that already have flowers, how does one keep that powdered glass from blowing up into the flowers?

The only option is to have no air movement below the canopy to prevent the gnatnix from being disturbed and, potentially, ruining the flower.

I'd rather have fans above and below the canopy, beneficial predators, and sticky traps.

Good luck.
I hear ya.. the gnatnix is very dusty... I think someone said that you’re supposed to rinse the nix before use.

More concerning than the current population of gnats in the tent are the gnats which are stuck to the buds.

I’ve only read one account online where someone had this problem and reported they’re success in removing them. During my harvest, I’m thinking of doing a video on bud washing specifically for removing the gnats thatre stuck to the buds.

Also I think that bud washing could be beneficial in removing the dust from the gnatnix.

I’m kind of excited to was my buds I’ve read nothing but good things. My growing buddy at work thinks I’m crazy. Can’t wait to show him my clean smoke.

I’m in week 8 of flowering now so I’m done trying to control the gnat pooulation. I’ll be drying out the soil and every once in a while I’ll say “day ello to my lil friend” with the leaf blower/vac and suck out as much as I can.

Here’s a pic from a week ago. You can see the “black” yellow sticky card hanging on the left.

Thanks everyone for your .02
 

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