GNATS? and peat pellet/soil issue.. Please help

I have just started growing in soil, many years ago I've grown in Coco, but I thought as the setup I purchased came with soil, I would use it.
I purchased the seeds, and was given peat pellets, after a soak in water, they came through pretty quickly in the peat pellets.
All was good, the seeds were growing quickly so I decided to put them into larger cups with holes in, like an idiot, I didn't make the wholes big enough, which I think caused it to get too moist, with no visible effect on the plant.

My solution was to plant them directly into the medium with the 5gal pots provided, I did tear the peat pellets as normal, one seed didn't germinate until late, which stayed in the peat pellet.

To cut a long story short, I noticed what looked like a spider crawl into the crack in the peat pellet, and another run across the floor, I think they are fungal gnats, either from the grow medium or the peat pellets. I live in the country, so it could have been brought into the tent by myself. All now appears to be okay (I think) I've used Cinnamon and some traps which haven't caught anything yet, and I am waiting on some mosquito dunks to use in the water.
The problem I am having is that the peat pellets are moist, but the growing medium is BONE dry. I am thinking about just taking it out, removing the netting completely even though one root is poking through (I haven't checked the other) and repotting them in smaller pots until they are big enough to actually go into the tent, and run some hot water through the bio mix to remove any nasties just to be sure.

Whats your guys advice? I don't want to cause excess stress on them, I am going to stop watering them now anyway, but I am worried about the pot being full of really dry medium and the seeds inside a moist peat pellet especially with the potential gnats. I have also purchased some Neem oil,
So what would you guys suggest? Just leaving them and once the mosquito dunks arrive water them as normal? Or take the netting off the peat pellet and put back in, or take the netting off and repot?
Also in regards to the gnats, I haven't seen any since, am I right in saying this could be a false positive because they could have already laid eggs? Hoping the cinnamon keeps them at bay until I can water with the dunks to kill the eggs if any?

I am also looking for some suggestions on spider mites, I haven't got any, but I am on a very limited time schedule and living in the country if something like that does happen I have to rely on 2-3 day amazon deliveries so I would like to have everything on hand (just incase)
The late germinator seems to be dying, it was extremely dry this morning so I put some soil on top, repositioned and watered it (it was quite dry) and it seems to be perking up. So let's hope it pulls through! Although with the tent I have I don't really want to have 3 plants in there, I will be trying some LST techniques but I wanted to pick the best of the litter, and maybe used the other in an old HPS tent I have.

Current average in the tent is 25 degrees C and 60% humidity.

Appreciate any help in advanced from you guys and I have read a lot of information here you guys have but would like to hear something specific to my grow!

Thanks

Pros of neem, its safe organic no toxic cheap.

Cons, smells like assholes, oilly as hell, often requires multiple applications, and has a tendency to bleach leafs.
Cinnamin is preventitive it will not kill off an active coloney.

Adult gnats are not a major issue above soil its the larva/juvinales in the medium that feed on roots that cause problems(also not major) if you managed to remove the adults all you have to worry about is if they laid eggs in your medium. There are products you can treat the soil with but i would rather not contaminate the medium with chems. Put a layer of something jagged and not soluble on top of your soil, when the juvinales craw out it will cut up their wings and prevent them from breeding, and/or crank your circulation fans up so high the clumbsy bastards cant fly right you wont have a 3rd gen. Keep your fly traps up to catch any of the resilent buggers.

Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (BTi) is extremely effective, completely benign to plants, and will kill all gnat larvae in about three weeks.
It's ineffective against adults, but will interrupt the gnat life cycle.
A few drops of BMC Micro-lift per gallon is all that's required.
Yellow sticky traps will keep the adults in check and also function as a population monitor.
I had my first, and hopefully last fungus gnat infestation recently, after a few weeks, the sticky traps stayed clean, never saw another gnat.

Billy the Mountain said:

Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (BTi) is extremely effective, completely benign to plants, and will kill all gnat larvae in about three weeks.
It's ineffective against adults, but will interrupt the gnat life cycle.
A few drops of BMC Micro-lift per gallon is all that's required.
Yellow sticky traps will keep the adults in check and also function as a population monitor.
I had my first, and hopefully last fungus gnat infestation recently, after a few weeks, the sticky traps stayed clean, never saw another gnat.

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This is FmSwsyze, and I approve this message.

Im in dtw coco where it shouldnt happen but if you dig deeper youll hear people claim its not killing them all. Its helping a lot but screw those little jerks with wings. My traps catch many still and they still outbreak can count 20 just chillin on the pot. Not to be a debbie downer.

I didnt have them for a while but when my grow got serious, they approved this message too lmao. Im sure Im just using it wrong though.

I add way more than Im supposed to every 24 hrs. Just a friendly tip youll read in a quick search they can expire as soon as 24hrs in water. I got mine from chewy good company most likely sold me a good batch.

I like H miles bugs better they will actually live and hunt them down. My mother cabinet got perpetuated hmiles bugs. Hyopsis miles idfk but that should pull it up if you search. I grew soil and they some how jumped into my dtw coco grow.

I turned it to a dtw mother cab after a couple dtw coco runs. Those beautiful little things survived and populated my mom cab and kept the gnats at bay only count 1 or none every time I open it, in the same grow groom.

You can buy h miles I would Im just being lazy but on my todo list to some how grow them and release them into my flowering pots.

edit this is soil which is good if your plants do good with dryback. Id take advantage of that as lots of people I read solve that with house plants and cannabis. That seems to kill them but if you grow in moist soil like some do then oof.

The gnats I get do not look like spiders. So you may have something different. But with that said. I've had some major issues for several years with gnats due to the place where I used to buy my soil.

If you have gnats and it's warm enough and you have moist soil. They will more than likely become a real problem. When that happens. I found that a 3 prong attack works best on the little bastards. Or better yet. Start before they become a real problem.

1. I mix hydrogen peroxide with the first dose of water I give the plants when watering. Most people recommend using considerably less (you can do a search for it). But I use 20% peroxide and 80% water. (The peroxide itself is 3% strength.) I usually give each plant 1.5L of 20% peroxide with each watering. With the rest being without peroxide. You want to apply the peroxide first. Because it works best when the soil is real dry. The foaming bubbles crush the little weasel larvae and their eggs,

2. I use a lot of yellow sticky traps. One per flower pot.

3. I use two oscillating fans that blow air across the top of the flower pots. This totally dries the surface of the soil out .

I take back what I said I have a new test to run. Turns out chlorene can kill bti and might of been working real well considering that but there are threads of people claiming it dont work. A quick search says its fine but a more thorough search suggests otherwise.

I bought three of these though wish me luck. If I had to buy a trap id buy of course the stickys *heavily scented or scented enough if thats all you can get* but also this thing. Scent works for long range attraction. Apple cidar smelly as heck Im lovin it. The UV alone works but only in the dark.

Just don't overwater your soil. If kept under control, a few here and there, isn't anything to worry about, unless you don't give a proper dry cycle. Constant over-saturated soil is a breeding ground for the larvae.

I tried dry backs with H202 @1.5% every few days then bti for 3 weeks straight but gnats were still present so I sealed my pots to stop them getting in or out.

They get stuck in the moisture film and die or I squish them but more importantly they don't appear to breed stuck in there?

I've had a roomier tester going for 4/5 weeks and it appears they don't breed trapped inside.
Maybe simply getting stuck to the moisture 1st idk?

I thought they were fruit flies to begin with so I couldn't work out what the sudden interest in my plants was about then the penny dropped.


It's almost 3 weeks since i bagged them and the yellowing has all cleared up and they're looking healthy again

Star Dog said:

I tried dry backs with H202 @1.5% every few days then bti for 3 weeks straight but gnats were still present so I sealed my pots to stop them getting in or out.
View attachment 5434740
They get stuck in the moisture film and die or I squish them but more importantly they don't appear to breed stuck in there?

I've had a roomier tester going for 4/5 weeks and it appears they don't breed trapped inside.
Maybe simply getting stuck to the moisture 1st idk?
View attachment 5434744
I thought they were fruit flies to begin with so I couldn't work out what the sudden interest in my plants was about then the penny dropped.
View attachment 5434746
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It's almost 3 weeks since i bagged them and the yellowing has all cleared up and they're looking healthy again
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Kinda interesting, I might try this. I've been fighting gnats for almost 6 months now. I've got mosquito dunks going in every watering, nematodes, and sticky traps. I'm pretty sure they have become immune to the BTI in mosquito dunks. I think they might actually like it now, and I think they might have made friends with the nematodes. One thing I've noticed is I only have them in my veg area. Once I stick them in my flowering tent they seem to die out quickly. I think it has something to do with the high airflow in my tent.

Hi guys, update from my end: It doesn't look like it was gnats, traps didn't catch anything, I think it was probably in the medium. But I am not sure IF it was gnats, should I still use the mosquito bits/dunks? I don't want to cause unnecessary stress to the plants, but I also don't want to run the risk of larvae.

Plants are doing pretty well, in an ironic twist, one trap that was stuck on the side of the tent fell on top of the seedling lol. She seems to be doing well now, seems to have recovered somewhat, this was yesterday, I've removed the traps, just left one in to see if anything else is there.

I have also purchased the mosquito dunks and neem oil as a preventitive (for spider mites also) I've changed the ventilitation, carbon filter is now at the bottom of the plant sucking air out, with 2 non-fanned ducting above for air to come in, which seems to have worked. I'll probably buy an inline fan once my MARS FCE3000 arrives and possibly use the carbon filter for inflow.

I didn't have much time yesterday to setup the tent with the outline ducting at the bottom.

I have also moved the fan above the plants and lifted the lights as one had some leaf curling which I think is either light stress (100w spider farmer NON-dimmable)

I am thinking of creating a grow log as it's my first grow, so others can learn from what NOT to do lol..

Purchased some backup seeds incase. But it's been a big learning process. But after a lot of reading here I think my tent setup seems to be good.

Some changes I've made:

Moved the seedlings to 18/6 (day
lifted lights and fans
adjusted airflow ducts and fans
made sure my R Humidity is at around 60%
Temp is pretty stable at min 21 degrees C and 24 in the day (Hoping the mars 300w will create more heat as we enter winter months)

Things I would do different? Probably grow in Coco, and not plant the seedlings into the big pots so early. And use a dimmable light! Which is now coming.. lol

I will add a photo once I go up and check on them very soon...

Zogs said:

Kinda interesting, I might try this. I've been fighting gnats for almost 6 months now. I've got mosquito dunks going in every watering, nematodes, and sticky traps. I'm pretty sure they have become immune to the BTI in mosquito dunks. I think they might actually like it now, and I think they might have made friends with the nematodes. One thing I've noticed is I only have them in my veg area. Once I stick them in my tent they seem to die out quickly. I think it has something to do with the high airflow in my tent.

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Hey bud unfortunately your story isn't too unusual ive read a fair bit saying they're difficult to eradicate completely, fwiw the whole of last week I only squished 3 gnats between 5 pots the numbers are definitely falling.

So. Gnats are annoying to deal with, the root cause is you're oversaturating your soil which gives them a home. In soil, you can get away with letting it dry out well. I actuallly dont like fabric pots for indoor for this reason.

- Mosquito dunks, 1/2 circle per gallon of water. It makes them unable to reproduce. No plant needs 1/2 gal in veg. Bugs arent going to evolve in 1 month to be immune to these.
- Fly strips, I have 2 in my tent.
- Buy Neem concentrate and mix approx 10% into spray. Its organic. It smells like piss. Spray 2-3x per week. Never back to back days and only when lights are off.

- If you have a crazy infestation and I mean like an unbearable amount of flyers, 3-5% peroxide and flush your plant. It will kill any of them in soil but it will kill all microbial life in your soil as well.