Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i knew i had a problem with gnats in my cham enclosure, those little tiny black flying things that look like flies only way smaller, but i had no idea it was this bad

today i did some extensive cleaning of his cage, and i found about 100 of them dead, and plenty more buzzing about

about a month ago i repotted my plants and washed them down with soapy water, this seemed to have solved the problem... for about 3 weeks. now theyre back in full force. im tired of finding these things all over my house and all over my cham enclosure. what can i do to get rid of them without harming my cham.

btw when repotting/cleaning i did not do anything to my orchids, which live in wood chips

thanks for any advice

I have the same problem. No matter what I do they come back. My friend has it with her frogs too. I would really like to know if anyone else has gotten rid of them.

I too had this problem. I'm not sure if what I did to get rid of them was the right thing but it seems to have worked with no side effects. I located the area that they seemed to be feeding/laying eggs and poured a little rubbing alcohol on it. Just a few drops, enough to moisten the soil but not soaking. That was about 4 months ago and since then I haven't seen a single one. Plants are doing great too.

i got some good advice from a friend, he said this works for him...

he said to rely mainly on small amounts of dripping water for hydrating my panther, and to only mist every few days. he said that the gnats lay their eggs in moist soil, so try to keep the top layer of soil in my plants dry. they only live for about 5 days, so if you can get things dry and keep it that way, the bug problem should disappear within a week or so.

ive been misting way too much and keeping my soil damp, ive also allowed water to pool up occasionally on the floor of the enclosure. im gonna heed the advice.

thanks tyler!

dry soil and fly paper

Be careful with this. If your room and cage climate are different than your friend's you might end up with a dehydrated cham instead. The gnats are a mere nuisance. A dehydrated cham is a much bigger problem.

These little gnats breed in overly moist soil. Check to see if your plant pots are draining well. Switch from plastic pots to clay. Change the potting mix so it drains faster (add some sand, gravel and put pebbles in the bottom of the pot). Get rid of the pot saucers so there is no standing water. A piece of flypaper around the back of the cage will catch a lot of them. You could even spritz the surface of the soil with a pyrethrin-based insect repellent or marigolds. A plant nursery may have other suggestions.

thanks carlton, lots of good advice there

ill try some things and let everyone here know how it goes in the coming weeks

It's only because I've been there BIG TIME!

would it be safe to simply replace the top 2 inches of soil in my pots with sand? i imagine the little SOBs wouldnt be able to dig deep enough to get to the soil

I think using the sand as a mix for better draining soil would be better. If the soil under the sand still doesn't drain well you'll still have gnats.

I don't recall what cham you have but if it is not a veiled and not prone to eating soil you can buy some dried (culinary) sage and crumble it on top of the soil after you have changed it. It is antiseptic and will often deter further colonies from developing. Years ago in my very early plant days I got desparate to rid some house plant of these things (didn't know what they were at the time) and being an avid herb user I experimented and sage was the winner!

lele
-----
0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia (both MIA
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta

sounds good lele ill give it a shot

thanks