Tiny worms in my pots of coco

Freakshow

Freakshow

Well-known member
I was flushing a few plants last night and saw hundreds of tiny wriggling white-ish worms floating to the top of the water in the pot. Looks like Fungus Gnat Larvae to me but I see no fliers in either my veg room or flower room. Not sure what else they could be. I checked several pictures posted on google.

my question is this: what's your go to cure for fungus gnats?? Tried and true the method you stick with to erradicate them.

thanks!
 
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I haven't had a bad gnat problem recently, but I used to use mosquito dunks (bacillus thuringiensis ssp Israelensis). They are for eradication of mosquito larvae in standing water. You can get them at most garden/hardware stores (or online, obvs). Just break off a chunk and put it in your watering container, let stand for 24 hours, then use as a soil drench. Kills gnats and their larvae.

BUT, I don't know if that's what your worms are... could also be some kind of nematode, or root aphids. But mosquito dunks are4 cheap and effective, so I'd try that first.
 
I can second the mosquito dunks. Keeping them in your clean water resevoir will make gnats a thing of the past. If your not concerened with living biology in the pot, a simple maintenance dose of hypochlorous, sanidate, h202 etc are all great options as well. The larvae likely came in the bag of soil. Good news, not seeing flyers, is indicitive you've got a clean space thats not supportive of their life cycle. Simply put, fungas gnats need fungus to eat. Healthy roots, and clean rooms don't offer much in that regard. Since going commercial i've gone to compressed coco bags for exactly this. rehydrating takes a bit of time, but the manufacturing dehydration/compression process seems to kill majority of those hitch hikers that inevitably come in bagged medias. Happy growing boss!
 
thank you folks!, that's the direction I was leaning. I really don't want anything that will leach into the plants and contaminate the buds......

i'm also going to put a bowl of apple cider vinegar with added sugar and dish soap out to see what it traps....
 
Freakshow said:
thank you folks!, that's the direction I was leaning. I really don't want anything that will leach into the plants and contaminate the buds......

i'm also going to put a bowl of apple cider vinegar with added sugar and dish soap out to see what it traps....
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I really like yellow sticky traps to deal with the fliers. They can be dirt cheap on Amazon sometimes for a whole wack of them and the Gnats love them.
 
supernuck said:
I really like yellow sticky traps to deal with the fliers. They can be dirt cheap on Amazon sometimes for a whole wack of them and the Gnats love them.
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supernuck said:
I really like yellow sticky traps to deal with the fliers. They can be dirt cheap on Amazon sometimes for a whole wack of them and the Gnats love them.
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that would be great but I haven't seen anything flying around.......... presents a bit of a problem. I picked up some dunks at Ace Hardware. I'm hesitant to use them for the moment since they do contain an insecticide that i do not want in my buds. I haven
t seen much detriment so far, so I'll toss the coco when i harvest and go from there.....
 

Washington State Dept of Health​

Is Bti harmful to humans or pets?​

No measurable health effects were seen in laboratory animals that ingested large concentrations of Bti. Cases involving human health effects following exposure to Bti are extremely rare. Direct exposure to Bti was shown to cause skin and eye irritation in some animals (3). Cases of eye and skin irritation in humans have also been reported following direct exposure with some Bacillus thuringiensis products (2). Pets are unlikely to experience health effects from exposure to Bti based on the results from numerous studies involving laboratory animals.

I have and know many growers who've used it without problems. It's only fatal you're a fungus gnat larvae
 
Yeah Freakshow, it's not taken up by the plants. You do a drench and it stays in the soil. Kills the fock out of the gnats, doesn't affect the plants.
 
kaka said:
A $100 digital microscope from Amazon is super handy. Highly recommended.
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I had one for a bit. Had a nice LCD screen. Loved it while it worked thing died after about 8 months. got a link to the one you have?
 
Very interesting i had these pop up in my last bag of CANNA coco, i was like WTF is this?! I did a little research on them after micro scoping them to see what they look like, it is indeed spring tails what i had. I let them ride out the grow, everything was still healthy, but just knowing there is this microscopic things wiggling around in there always makes me worry, luckily everything turned out ok.
 
One time I bought a pothos from Home Depot that had a bad gnat infestation. A hydrogen peroxide soil drench took care of it real quick.
 
well, i have good news, the plants that had the infestations have been harvested. I'm not seeing worms in the 2 pots that were just flushed and are ready for harvest.....
 
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