Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone, When cleaning the cage out the other day I noticed that there were two or three little bugs flying around on the inside of my cage, they looked like gnats to me. I've never had a problem with bugs in my snake cages or even my rat cages before. I have him in one of those new exo-terra glass cages with a plastic rock water bowl, and his substrate is the wet reptibark stuff. I mist the bark and him once every day or two, I'm pretty sure the bugs are hanging around cause of the moisture, but how can I stop this? Other substrate would be better? What does everyone else use? I have a boa and 4 rats in the same room but everyone is seperated by at least 5-6 feet. No bugs are in my boa's cage or the rats cages. Any info would help out. Thanks

I have the same problem. And I have the same setup except I have moist moss on the bottem of the cage. Every day when I mist the cage I can see a few flying around and there are a couple dead in the water bowl. The gnats? are not in the cages that are ten feet away. Those cage have Rainbow Boa's in them and are also moist.

JAXONZRX

i know what these guys are because i had them also and have done a lot of reading up on them.they are most likly fungus knats.they are attracted to the water/humidity and lay eggs in the substrate.the larva hatch and eat decaying material and plamt roots.if you have no live plants to worry about,i wouldnt worry too much.if there are no live plants they wont stick around long and will cycle out pretty soon.the best bet short of pesticides,if they do stick around,would be to let the substrate dry out completely.your snake will be able to handle this for a couple days as long as hes not shedding.you can even mist your snake a bit as long as its not enough to drip onto the floor and re-wet your substrate(it must dry out completely for 4-5 days)now they may not be fungus knats ,but another type of knat i also experienced once.they are called phorid flies.these guys are a bit tougher but still as long as there are no live plants and you dont leave feces on the floor,they also shouldnt stick around.the problem with the phorid flies is,if they begin to breed in your house,they quickly move into the drains(their favorite breeding place)and its hard to get rid of them if they do that.they can breed and feed on the protine slime that lines the walls of bathtub and sink drains.these flies,if youre a breeder,must be eliminated at any cost(pesticides whatever)because they commonly will infest and lay their eggs on snake eggs and the larve can burrow into live eggs and kill entire clutches.they are very small and can find ways into incubators .they are dirty(also called filth flies)and can spread disease and infection.the way to tell the difference is,fungus knats are super small(almost hard to see)and fly in fast,jerky motions.the phorid flies are quite a bit larger and look exactly like fruit flies except they have black eyes.they also perch with both back wingsfolded together to apear as one wing(as opposed to common flies where you can clearly see both wings when standing still)either way,they are not a big deal as long as you have no live plants(they can cause root rot and kill entire vivariums)and as long as you have no live eggs ,and as long as they dont begin breeding in the drains.another consideration would be if you have house plants,you can get rid of the fungus knats in your vivarium by drying out the soil,but if they are living in your house plants,they will keep reinfecting.anyway,i hope this helps a little.they really do suck.i have noticed this happening with those exoterra vivariums a lot.they are enclosed enough to keep humidity up,have a recess on the bottom to hold stangnent water,but also have large cracks around the doors to let in all sorts of pests.just a few reasons why i wont use them.if you do decide to keep them,try sealing off the wide cracks to keep them out.

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Thank you for your reply.

anytime fellas.im just hope what i said helps.you didnt mention if you are keeping live plants or not??i think dealing with them is a lot easier without live plants.actually,i gave you the advise i used but after rereading my post,i think i would have given different advise.that is if you dont have a planted tank.the reason why i decided to dry out my cage,was that i had it planted a lot,with lots of landscaping and live moss,waterfall ect.if all you have is substrate and waterbowl,well in that case i think i would just dump the substrate and start over.they are living and breeding(if thats what they are doing)in your substrate,so that should solve it without having to subject your snake to the drying out process.if they prove to be a real problem,and you dont have plants planted in the substrate,you can add some type of deterent to the substrate.there are a lot of organic materials that act as natural defences agains insects.i know dried crysanthumums,mint oil,garlic,as well as many others,work to keep bugs away and should be harmless to your snake.some might even make your cage smell niceanyway,i just wanted to let you know that if you dont have much invested in your landscaping,it might pay to just dump your substrate and know in the future to keep an eye on it getting too wet and forming pupples on the bottom.

I don't have live plants in mine, in fact if you look at the picture that JAXONZRX posted, my setup is identical to his except that I have only two perches in mine. I think I will just toss the substrate I have in there, clean it out, and start over. Eventually I will try some of the deterants you mentioned when I can get out of the house to go shopping. Thanks again.

Or they could also be fruit flies. Curious...do you have any other animals? Birds?

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1.0.0 BP
1.1.0 Chondro

total is the gtp, a boa, two cats, two dogs and 4 rats. Other than the occasional ants we find in the apartment, the problem is only in the gt's cage. This weekend I'm going to completly clean out the cage and start over. Hopefully they will all go away.