Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Since I recently started purchasing my crickets online (I have an 8 week old dragon), I've notice these small flying insects (they look like tiny fruit flies-they might be). I have to keep my crickets in my washroom as it gets too cool at night outside. I noticed them in the cricket box and now I'm seeing them in my kitchen and some other areas of the house. How can I get rid of these things. They are driving us nuts. I have my dragon in a 29 gal tank right now with a wire mesh cover and they sometimes get in there. We're not infested or anything like that, but they are very annoying. Any ideas how to get rid of them. I tried catching them in between my hands, but they are very fast. Does anyone else have this problem? I'm wondering when they shipped the crickets if they came with them, as we've never had anything like this before. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks

sounds like what I would call "nats" ? sp?

which are a "kind of fly"

like fruit flys all flys feed on some form of decaying matter.

so that is what you need to locate and remove.

some larva may be in a shippment of live crickets or come from many places....

but they will only thrive when they can find food and water and the right temps.

I suspect you may have one of more of the following probkems:

1) dead crickets that are in a damp location such as a water dish.
2) to much damp food left for more than 24 hours in the cricket tank.
3) your crickets may be to warm and damp (humid) which will kill them to fast and make a nasty stinky smell.

note the common items:
Clean up every day till the flys are gone.
identify what statred the problem and remove or change that.

generaly crickets doe not need a lot of mositure to thrive.
if they are to warm and packed to tight they will get a kind of "wet fungus" where a number of them will die fast and then smell bad. make sure they have room, some times you can add egg carton, roll tubes from paper towels or other such that can let them hide and be tossed out when dirty.
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Those are reasons for attracting them but they will come even if your cage is clean.Especially if you use sphagnum moss they are impossible to get rid of unless you replace the subtrate or unless there is a product available that I haven't heard about.

Thanks for the helpful information. I don't have any bottom material in the cricket box. The first set of crickets I got, I left the egg crate carton in there for them to crawl on. It seemed that they kept leaving their poo in there and it did start to stick. That's when I noticed the flies/nats. The crickets the company sent me were bigger than I really wanted. We cleaned out the box real good and I haven't put any egg crates in it. This time we got real small crickets (14day old) which were almost too small. My husband took a large plastic (rubbermaid) box and made a hinged top for it. He then inserted a long plastic PVC pipe through the side that is capped off on the top. The crickets like to climb into that and we just pull the pipe out and tap into a baggy (sometimes we get way more than we want). I don't think I was cleaning the box out as good the first time around. This batch, everyday I wipe out any dead crickets or poo that I can. Hopefully this will keep the flies away. I have noticed that we lost a lot of them a few days after putting them in the box after they were shipped. Someone suggested that we don't have enough ventilation, so my husband is suppose to cut some holes on the sides and glue screen to it. I use dry food and a gel like substance for there liquid. Thanks

i have this problem in my red eyed tree frog tank, i am going to hang a fly-strip just outside the tank and try to get rid of them that way. like you i just have enough to get annoying, probably one fly laid eggs a few weeks ago and now there is a small (colony?)
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