Mosquito Bits Thank You

I started using mosquito bits to get rid of fungus gnats and then it hit me! I have to treat every plant in the house. Once I started treating the houseplants those buggers are almost eradicated.

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Hello @JaneQP If you don’t mind I would like to pick your brain a little about the mosquito bits.
I just started using the bits like a month ago, I sprinkled em on each plant enough to cover most of the top of the soil. Left it for about a week or so and noticed no change in the gnats population. So after the second week I added about half as many bits and worked them into the soil approximately 1.5 inches deep. It’s been another 2 weeks now and still no change other than the hundreds being removed by yellow cards. I found a lady on YouTube that said she soaks the bits in water for a couple hours strains them out and waters her plants with it and it takes care of the gnats without adding so much organic material to your soil with so many bits. I’m thinkin it sounds good to limit the amount of the bits because they’ll hold moisture and eventually cause a mold problem or something else. So i tried the soaking the bits a couple days ago, it’s to soon to judge the outcome of this but I found your post on bits and with your success I thought if I told you what I’ve tried you would tell me what I might have done wrong and or right, so that I can beat these little gnat bastards.

Thanks

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@MeEasy. Sorry about your gnats! Sounds like you have a bigger colony that I do. I was getting 20 on the sticky traps a day for each plant. I am new to growing so everything is trial and error with me.

The bottle says one teaspoon per 25 feet so I gave each plant just a little shake of bits before watering. I also had to look around for other possible sources - like a couple of dead plants in soil that were crawling with the buggers! I even dropped 2 bits down each drain in our house.

I also upped the air circulation with another fan since the girls are getting so big,

I am off to the garden center to pick up more sticky traps! I like the idea of adding it to the water so I’ll try that also.

Maybe less is more with these critters?

Let me know how it goes with you.

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@MeEasy. I was doing my weekly watering and a little trimming and what does my little eye spy? There were only three that I could see. Grrrrrrr

I don’t think they ever go away completely I just wanted to try something new hoped it would work better. I think DE works the best it’s just kind of a pain to use, at this point I’m thinkin I’ll be going back to it. Of course I keep a bunch of yellow cards in my pots to catch the adults

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@JaneQP just thought of something else that really works good I just stopped doing it because I top feed dry nutes now. Get some fine sand and put a layer on top of your soil about 1.5 inches deep

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I’ve done that with my houseplants when I bring them back inside when summer ends. I’ll grab a bag next time I am at HD. How old are your plants? I’ve put out some new stickies so I’ll see what I catch tomorrow.

PS I have a 50 lb bag of DE…we have a ton of earwigs that love to chow down everything in our garden.

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Seeds on this round were dropped on 11/9 almost killed em by neglect because I got sick and had to go in for surgery and blah blah blah. I have em back alive and growing nicely now. Here’s a pic from this morning. This is my 1st grow in this tent so there’s quite a few changes to my setup too

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Nice! Glad you are okay. Nice set up. I am in a 2x6 closet in an unused bedroom. I picked up five stunted clones 10/22. They would be about 24” tall now but I did a little LST. I’ll probably be flipping in two weeks. Cross fingers-I tried growing once before and never made it this far.

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I just moved into this tent from a 2x6 closet well it’s a 5x6 but I was only using 2 feet of it. I started out with a couple 600w blurple lights in there a little over two years ago. I added a sf2000 from spider farmer did two grows and decided I wanted another one but didn’t think i could keep the temperature down in there with the two sf lights so i bought a tent and a bigger exhaust fan. With the blurple lights I was getting an average of a quarter pound per round, got 526 grams 1st time with the sf and the two blurple, then last time I got 587g with the same three lights. I’m going for two pounds this time but with this damn cancer being back I might not be able to get there. I already have to go for a second surgery jan 4th because they don’t think they were able to get it all of it.

Here’s a couple pics of my closet this was from the last round

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I am very sorry about your cancer returning and will send healing thoughts your way.

I have five girls, 2 by 6, 2 600W (really 108W each) cheap blurples and would be ecstatic to reap half as much as you did with the same set up.

Best wishes my friend.

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Keep at it that’s almost exactly what I started with 2 600w blurples that were actually 113w I had been growing outside for 30 years before I moved into the closet. My first try was a disaster but after a couple tries I was getting a quarter pound per grow with them. You’ll get better every time if you’re anything like me you will be addicted to growing.
Have fun and good luck :+1: :evergreen_tree::sunglasses:

@MeEasy

I took out Gary (GG4) to water and inspect-darn if there wasn’t a ton of baby flying critters. So I put down a layer of mosquito bits like you and covered it with about an inch of sterile potting soil (baked at 180 for an hour). I ordered more sticky traps. It seems like everything that goes wrong goes wrong with Gary. But I did cut two clones from her. I haven’t pulled out the DE yet.

How are yours doing?

I was actually looking for you, I couldn’t remember who or the name of the thread where we were talking about mosquito bits. I was literally for years now in a fight with gnats sometimes I’d stay ahead and others they were winning. I was trying bits as the next thing on my list to try.

I think I found an answer
I found a video just by chance the other day probably a day or so after we talked not knowing if it would work I didn’t keep an eye on our conversation. Anyways here it is.
Take a handful of the bits and put em in the water you are about to give your plants and allow them to soak for an hour or so then strain out the bits and water your plants with the water. It doesn’t take much in a gallon of water I have the shaker of bits and I put a capful. I was sceptical because what’s the difference in putting em in the pot and watering them into the soil but I’m telling you it has worked. Don’t get me wrong there’s still a few flying around here and there but I’ve done it twice a second time just to double up. In the week or so since we talked my 10 yellow cards are now like 5 or 6 and each one probably has 8 or 10 gnats stuck on them. DE is the only thing that came close to doing this and I think this worked much faster and better. I’m sure that they will come back but this is so simple and effective I’m hoping they do come back so I can see if it knocks them right back down.

My plants are definitely up and growing, the plan is to top dress them tomorrow let the food cook for a week strip the leaves and switch the lights to 12s for flower :crossed_fingers:

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@MeEasy. Major coolness! Silver, my golden goat, is getting fed tomorrow and I’ll add the bits to the nute juice tonight! I had to tie a few more branches down on Silver since she’s taken off thanks to all the help received here including you! The closet is filling out and they are halfway to the lights. I am honestly going to flip next week (I say that every week!)

Looks like we are flipping at the same time!

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We can stay in touch here and swap pics and notes I’ve learned alot watching others grow. I’ll post a couple pics tomorrow when I feed em. :+1:

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@MeEasy. Sounds good. I’ve never made to bloom before

Hi @JaneQP I didn’t get to trimming today but took a couple pics. Oh and I had a few more gnats today I’ll have to reapply the bit juice SMH little bastards :triumph:

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@MeEasy. Wow just wow! I feed them each a TBSP of bits in water once a week.

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Hi again @JaneQP I found some little critters that are supposed to really help us in our fight with gnats. The little guys like to eat gnats for breakfast :yum:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WSDX4XC

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