see, thats one thing that I was thinking...maybe the gnats are too small and it might only curl around something thats a bit bigger. Thing is, I dont know if im ready to give my cape something bigger. Its been doing fine with the extremely tiny gnats, so in the past few days I have tried dropping in a couple of very very very small ants. They all put up a mighty struggle for about an hour, and then eventually are able to walk away alive and well. I can only imagine what would happen if I put a large ant or other large insect. Maybe my plant just needs to get stronger and bigger.