Page 1 of 1

Fruit flies

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:23 pm
by EternitySmile
So I put a terrarium full of VFTs in my office so that I could feed the houseflies to them that always seem to find a way into my office. And as often seems to be the case when humans attempt to control pest populations by introducing predators, there are unintended side effects. My problem is what appears to be fruit flies. There are hundreds of them in my tank now. They must be breeding in there. They pretty much stay inside the tank, but it looks ugly. These bugs are too small for all but my smallest flytraps to eat. I recently put several sundews in the tank to eat them, but there's no way these few sundews will be able to keep up with the number of these bugs in the tank.

So a couple questions:
1. Do fruit flies pose any threat to VFTs? Like will the bugs eat the plants or anything like that?
2. Actually, I'm not 100% sure they're fruit flies. They're small winged creatures that crawl around a lot and occasionally fly from one place to another. They sure look like fruit flies. Are there any other bugs I should be worried about that are about the size of fruit flies?
3. Is there any VFT-safe insecticide I could spray in the tank to knock most of them out without killing the VFTs?
4. Any other plants I could try that could eat a ton of these things? I only have about 8" from the media surface to the lid, so the plants couldn't be too tall.
5. Anyone else had a similar experience? If so, what did you do?

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:31 pm
by Strobo
I would say use some insecticide (which one I don't know for America) and change the soil.

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:28 pm
by magicwiser
I have had a similar problem with my plants. If you look at the pest identification thread at the top, it will give a rundown of what you have. Rather that trying insecticides, I found that keeping the soil damp, not wet, helps a lot. Direct sunlight also seems to keep them in check. As far as them being harmful, I don't think they are.

EDIT:

Here is the link to the pest thread. It is very helpful.

http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/bug-i ... t6170.html

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:02 pm
by EternitySmile
Ah, you know after looking at the Pest Identification thread, I think they may be fungus gnats. Seems like mosquito dunks are probably the way to go.

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:13 pm
by plantman1001
I was going to say that it sounds like you have fungus gnats.
They do not seem to harm the plants.
But if you do not want them in there here are 2 things you can do

1, Put some Terrestrial Utricularia in your tank.
2, spray your soil with bayer 3 in one, http://www.bayeradvanced.com/tree-shrub ... te-control This stuff works great ! :mrgreen:

Hope I helped.

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:57 pm
by pieguy452
Sundews and butterworts gorge themselves with fungus gnats :)

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 4:58 am
by jaester
pieguy452 wrote:Sundews and butterworts gorge themselves with fungus gnats :)
Indeed! My capillaris can't keep up with the gnats in my mini greenhouse. All leaves are full of 'em.

Re: Fruit flies

Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:05 pm
by Starchy
Yeah, I was gonna recommend Drosera. It isn't really a quick fix, but might be more fun! One of the recommended foods for them are fruit flies. I believe you can currently find some free Droseras in the seed bank: