9 EASY Solutions For Fungus Gnats! | How To Get Rid of Fungus Gnats in Houseplants!

Hey guys. Fungus gnats are so annoying. They're always buzzing right up in your face, flying by as you're walking, making you go like this. Your neighbors think you're crazy. Anyway, maybe that's just me. Today I'm going to be sharing with you my best tips for preventing and then also getting rid of any future infestations from happening. So I hope you find this video helpful. Something to mention about fungus gnats is if you have a few fungus gnats here and there, don't worry too much about the effect they may have on your plant. It's only if you have a large number or a long time going infestation that you need to worry about your plant health. And they primarily only impact younger, like seedlings and sprouts. So like smaller, less mature plants. You really don't have to worry too much other than the fact that they're super annoying. I also really quickly want to mention that I will be talking about several different products. If you want to try any of these products for yourself, I will have links to each of the specific products I personally use and love and have had great success with. So yeah, if you want to try them out for yourself, get rid of some fungus gnats, the links will be down there. So a little bit about fungus gnats. Adults actually lay up to 200 eggs in the first few inches of soil. And they do prefer damp soil. So if the soil isn't damp, they're probably not going to lay their eggs there. Keep that in mind for a little something later on. After only three days, the eggs hatch into larva. And those larva feed on organic material or decaying plant root that can be found in the soil. So that is a big reason why they prefer damp soil. If the root systems are starting to rot or get soft or unhealthy, then that's when the fungus gnats particularly like to chow down on them. So that's why they prefer damp soil. One of the reasons they prefer it anyway. They stay down there in the soil for about two weeks before they turn into adults. So that's why with any of these methods I'm going to talk about in the video, you do need to stay consistent with your use of it. Because like I said, there could be gnat eggs or larva still living in the soil. After those two weeks, the adults emerge and then repeat that whole process. The adults can live for up to a week, which is actually a lot longer than I thought for some reason. For some reason, I only thought they lived for three days, but they do live for a week. So really small numbers of fungus gnats are harmless. It's if the cycle keeps repeating itself and the population continues to grow that you really have to start worrying about your plants. So things you can do to help prevent fungus gnats from thriving in your home is, number one, you can bottom water your plants. I have a full video all about my process for bottom watering. I will link that in the description if you want to learn a little bit more about bottom watering and some of the benefits of that. But as far as fungus gnats goes, the big benefit about bottom watering, if your plant is soaking up water from the base, the roots are able to drink the water before the top few inches of soil is saturated. So if you aren't letting your plant sit in the water for a long enough time that those top few inches of soil are wet, fungus gnats aren't going to want to lay their eggs in that soil. If they have nowhere to lay their eggs, then they're going to die off. Number two thing you can do is allow your plants to dry a bit more thoroughly between waterings. And again, just like with bottom watering, that doesn't give the fungus gnats a lot of spaces to lay their eggs. They don't want to lay their eggs in dry soil, so by letting your plants dry out more in between waterings solves the problem. Number three is you can add a top layer of sand or those really small decorative pebbles to the top of your pots, just a few inches. Sand and pebbles, of course, don't retain water like the organic materials found in soil does. By putting that at the top, it allows the water to drain completely through. And especially with sand, it's difficult for them to climb down to the soil, if not impossible for them to climb down to the soil. So I definitely recommend sand. The fourth thing you can try is DIYing some vinegar traps for the bugs, especially if you want more natural solution to the problem, although it definitely isn't as effective and it's something you definitely have to keep doing for a lot longer than some of the other methods. Anyway, so how I do one of these traps is I'll just get a mason jar or a cup, just anything glass that's kind of shallow. And then I'll go ahead and fill up the container about halfway with apple cider vinegar. Then I just take a piece of Saran wrap and I'll fold it over the top of the container and add a rubber band around the top to hold that Saran wrap in place. And then I'll go ahead and poke some holes in it. That'll get rid of them. They'll go in there to try and eat the apple cider vinegar and get trapped and eventually drown. Kind of makes me feel bad to see them trapped. And then just be sure to change out the apple cider vinegar every four to five days-ish. Of course, with these apple cider vinegar traps, you can only trap the adults. So you do have to wait for all of the eggs and larva remaining in the soil to turn into adults and then fall into your trap. So it definitely can take a lot longer. The fifth solution for fungus gnats is to use these yellow sticky traps. This is the brand I personally use and love. This will be linked in the description, like I said. But these are just yellow sticky traps that you can place into the soil of your plants. So basically they just come with a spiky edge. They also come with this little shovel, but I don't really use this. I guess if your soil is super compact, that may come in handy. But they just come in this triangular shape so it's easy to jab down into the soil. Sticky protective layer. So of course they don't stick to each other. You just pull it off of both sides. Like I said, these are not inconspicuous by any means, but they definitely do the job. And if a bug flies and lands on it, then it's going to get stuck on these traps and not be able to move slash reproduce. So particularly like using these in my larger potted plants and I'll kind of put them in the center of the plant. They are kind of big and pretty noticeable. So if that's something that bothers you, then of course try one of the other methods. But this one does work really well. And these also work for a lot of other indoor pests as well. So that is an extra benefit of these. I just have a few of these dispersed throughout my house on my larger plants. Your next option is mosquito bits. Mosquito bits are personally what I tend to use in my houseplants. So I prefer to actually mix these into my soil as I'm mixing up the soil to pot a plant. I will link my potting soil video down below. There are going to be so many links, so many down there. It is recommended that you actually just sprinkle these over the top of the soil. The reason I prefer to mix them into the actual soil itself is they do tend to mold over time. It's not harmful to your plants or anything, but it can kind of be an eyesore. So by mixing it into the soil, you don't have to look at that and think about that. You can also go ahead and soak some of these in water to help some of the bacteria within the bits seep into the water and then water your plants with that. Then any organic material in your soil is going to absorb the water, of course. And as the fungus gnats feed on that, the bacteria from this crap will kill them, which is what we want. And then your last option, I guess, is you can sprinkle it over top, of course. And then as you notice the bits getting moldy or fuzzy or whatever, you can scoop them out and then just replace them. So any of these methods will work really well. It is recommended that you just sprinkle them over top of the soil, but I get it. Sometimes we gotta get creative. Option number seven is to give your plants a hydrogen peroxide soak. So this is not something you can do all of the time, but maybe twice a year or so it'll be fine for your plants. As with pretty much everything else, the full hydrogen peroxide video and how I do it will be linked down below if you want a more detailed step-by-step guide. Basically what you do is you mix one part hydrogen peroxide and one part water. Water your plant that the fungus gnats seem to be emerging out of. Hydrogen peroxide will kill them. And again, that ratio is one part water, one part hydrogen peroxide, and I do use 3% hydrogen peroxide. Option number eight is to use a neem oil mixture. You can buy pre-mixed neem oil, which is what I prefer to do, or you can buy a neem oil concentrate, I think is what it's called, and mix it at home yourself. For the case of fungus gnats, they're pretty easy to eradicate. So I just like using a pre-mixed container that I don't really have to worry and think about it too much at home. Basically what you can do with this for fungus gnats is since fungus gnats do mostly live in the soil, that's kind of where we need to focus this. So the spray bottle is meant for spraying like the foliage and stuff, but you can also give your plants a neem oil bath. So go ahead and mix your neem oil, or just buy this one like I buy. Just completely saturate the soil around the plant. Make sure that top few inches are completely soaked. It won't have any harmful effects on your plant. It does its job. So this actually works in a lot of really cool ways for a lot of different pests. The oil can actually completely coat the bug itself, preventing it from breathing. So it'll suffocate to death. Also, if the bug is actually eating on the foliage, eating the foliage of your plant, your plant by that point has hopefully absorbed some of this out of the soil. The bug is eating residual neem oil within the leaves. Same with if it's eating the organic material in the actual soil that has absorbed this. It prevents the bug from maturing because for some reason, they aren't able to eat properly anymore or absorb food anymore. So they aren't able to turn into adults and reproduce basically. Really quickly, neem oil has a garlicky smell. It's not like super potent and it's not like exactly garlic, but kind of garlicky. So if you're sensitive to smells and things like that, I wouldn't use this all the time. Just be forewarned that there is a bit of a smell and it doesn't linger for too long, but it will be there probably the rest of the day. And then the ninth and last thing you can try to get rid of fungus gnat infestations is diatomaceous earth. It's this stuff right here. This is the food grade quality. Fun fact, they actually use this food grade in human foods with flour sometimes because it stops bugs from eating the food and humans can consume this. Mammals can consume this and it won't harm them. So that was just kind of a fun fact as I was researching this that I found very interesting. So you really don't have to worry too much. The one thing it says about this is you should wear protective eyewear and maybe a mask. Be prepared. My glasses are fogging up. Since it is a dust, it can cause eye and respiratory irritation. Although it's not really going to harm you, it's just going to be uncomfortable. So just wear some things, wear a bandana and some glasses or something to protect yourself. And this stuff does fly everywhere. So that's why this is number nine. It's not my favorite method. It does the job really, really well, but this is very, very messy. So I only do this in dire situations. So this one that I prefer to buy, again, it'll be linked in the description. It comes with this duster that you just put some of the diatomaceous earth inside of it and pump it. It'll coat your plant. You put it on the actual plant foliage, put it on the top of the soil mixture. And then also you can put it in the plant saucer near where the drainage hole is so that any plants, any bugs that are living toward the bottom of that soil, basically what this does is the bug crawls around in it and this cuts them up like glass and they die. That'd be a way to go. Terrible, terrible way to go. But we got to do what we got to do to keep our plants alive, you know what I mean? This works on any soft bodied insect. Yeah, this is a really, really good investment as well. But again, like I said, it is very messy. I think I forgot to mention that I would do this in like the bathtub, ideally outside. I just do it in the bathtub and then I rinse my bathtub out really, really well. Then I'll just kind of like shake it off a little bit and I'll just rinse wherever I did the dusting out with water really well. So the bathtub's a really easy place to do this. So those are the nine ways I have personally kept fungus gnats out of my house plant collection, out of all of these babies. They're honestly, occasionally I'll see a fungus gnat, but it's never anything that's gotten out of control. My favorite method of fungus gnat control out of all nine of these is the mosquito bit mixture. Next, I really like the hydrogen peroxide mixture and neem oil. So those are probably the three I prefer. But if you have any other methods, please leave them in the comments down below. Any further information on any of these products, it is much appreciated. Oh yeah, I have merch. I'm just gonna throw that in there right now. I will pin a link to my merch at the top of the comments. This right here is the merch. It is a pen and ink drawing that I hand drew while looking at my own Monstera plant, inking it in, is that the word? So yeah, I'm very, very proud of it. I hope you like it. I'm working on getting more sizes available as well as more color options. But for now, what's available will be pinned at the top of the comments as well as in the description box. Surprise, surprise. That is it for this video. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next one. Bye.