fungus gnats - next level assistance
 

i have a tiny fly problem in my house... and in my orchids.

i am 95% sure they are fungus gnats.
tiny black-ish flies, like fruit flies or gnats. i see them hovering around all my potted plants. i got them from a money-tree someone gave me as a present (thanks - you know who you are).

lesson one learned - quarantine your plants before letting them play with the others, now lots of them have it.

they seem to prefer the moss and bark-chip potted plants more than say the sandy aloes or even the "general" soil plants. specifically, they have honed in on my orchids.

i have tried to go natural - cinnamon sprinkled on top and watering them with chamomile tea - kill the fungus, starve the gnat. but... they persist. it has been three months and many doses of both, no luck.

problems i am having deciding on a solution:

a) the chemical alternatives are a bit confusing - not really sure which product i should get by name based on what i'm trying to kill and what i don't want to kill...

b) will this kill my orchids? what i have:
2 phals potted in bark,
1 phal in moss (i just haven't re-potted it after getting it)
1 paph in bark
1 phrag in moss
1 brassidium in moss (also to be re-potted in moss/bark)
1 encyclia (clinging to a stick - unaffected thus far)

any suggestions on a level-two approach?
should i go chemical?
what name-brand choice do i make?

We have this problem in China; I will be honest, the chemicals in China little to no information come with the chemical to combat them. And for this reason I won’t use them; so we had to go to fly tape, we hang them around and cut 2-3 inch lengths and place them onto the surface of the infected plants pots. We have to change them monthly but it keeps them in good check, we also use a hand held electronic bug zapper, which resembles a tennis racket.

I grow some plants that need to always stay wet and must be fertilized with organic fertilizer. Fungus gnats love this scenario. I have found the butterwort (a carnivorous plant) to be the solution to my problem. :)

I always have a f gnat flying around but he is likely to die. You are correct in that they come in on outside soil. I have a 3 prong approach. 1 - I kill the larvae in the soil by watering with rainwater from my barrel that has a mosquito dunk in it. This bacteria will kill the fungus gnat larvae in the soil when you water it. I hear you can also sprinkle on the surface of the soil. mosquito dunk
2- get some tangle trap paste and paint it on a yellow solo cup. The adults fly to it and can't get up and die :)
3 - grow some carnivorous plants. They love similar conditions to orchids and use the buggers for fertilizer. Cape sundew will have the buggers stuck all over it.

In addition to the above remedies, sulphur spray can keep them in check. You can buy powdered sulphur (a fungicide) and mix your own spray, or buy the spray pre-mixed. Shake vigorously before using. It's a non-toxic remedy.

i brought a wee sundew home from muskoka last summer - they grow along the river's edge at my parent's cottage. this variety is beautiful, but tiny and needs intense humidty - couldn't keep it alive after the fall either. maybe it's an annual. i will look into a carnivorous option.

will also look into the other suggestions - i water with rain water (melted snow right now) and could try to add something to it, or use any of the other suggested products and will try the sticky traps

thanks for the advice!

Your Sundew was likely just going dormant. Temperate species require a winter dormancy period. Put them in an unheated garage or basement until spring and they regrow. A tropical species like a capensis would probably be better suited for your situation.

no, it died dead. i'm not saying i did everything i should have to keep it alive and i didn't let is "chill" for the winter, maybe that even stressed it to death, but it died. i will try again this year though and see what happens - also a tropical variety could be good.

but i don't see how i'm going to be able to get enough of these in my house to eat what's flying around here... they're not just in my orchids, they're in my amarylis, my cactus, my false sea onion... gah

I too can recommend butterworts. I don't have any fungus gnats anymore and they also got rid of whitefly that came in with my basil. With your collection you would probably need only 1 or 2.
I put them outdoors in Summer and literally overnight they are covered in tiny insects....

I kept a capensis in a barrel outdoors, and it was constantly black with gnats, far more so than my native species.