VFT Pests

[cooper]

Thanks for the info on my last post everyone.

I'm holding off buying more plants because I found these really irritating mites on one of my flytraps (I don't want to expose new plants to the same terrarium). Now, I'm guessing they're mites, and I sprayed the plant a few times with Diazinon. It's been around 4 hours since I've sprayed, and I still see a couple of these tiny pests surface the soil every few minutes. Should I spray more? Or should I wait the alloted seven days...?

They're really nasty... I don't want to hurt my plants with more bugs or more spray! Any help would be *vastly* appreciated.

Thanks a million,

Coop

 

[PlantAKiss]

Hi Cooper

First...welcome to the forums! :biggrin:

These mites...what do they look like? Do they fly? The reason I'm asking is you will frequenly find fungus gnats around CPs because of the wet soil. They will fly around but also crawl around on the soil quite a bit. If they are fungus gnats, I don't think the gnats themselves are very harmful (and they make great food for sundews and butterworts!). But I have heard the larvae which live in the soil can damage root systems.

I think there is something you can use to treat the soil for fungus gnat larvae but you might want to check with Jaie on that.

If its some other non-flying kind of bug, you might want to provide more of a description and see if anyone else has seen anything like it. I haven't really had any pest problem with my CPs other than the fungus gnats (and the *!%#!@* squirrels).

Good luck and come visit often.

Suzanne

 

[cooper]

Thanks Suzanne.

I checked around at a few FAQs about pests... I'm now leaning towards fungus gnats. These little guys move *quickly,* which turns me away from the mite theory. They're little and brown, and I've never seen them directly on the plant tissue, which makes me think they're feeding on detritus in the soil. I'm also guessing that they fly because I keep my plants potted in a terrarium, pretty separated; more than one plant is affected.

So spraying the Diazinon was probably a mistake... let's hope my baby common flytrap can survive the stress.

Thanks,

Cooper

 

[cooper]

Thanks Suzanne.

I checked around at a few FAQs about pests... I'm now leaning towards fungus gnats. These little guys move *quickly,* which turns me away from the mite theory. They're little and brown, and I've never seen them directly on the plant tissue, which makes me think they're feeding on detritus in the soil. I'm also guessing that they fly because I keep my plants potted in a terrarium, pretty separated; more than one plant is affected.

So spraying the Diazinon was probably a mistake... let's hope my baby common flytrap can survive the stress.

Thanks,

Cooper

 

[Guest]

Hey Cooper,

I don't think that spraying it was a mistake, the plants should be ok....but you won't kill all the gnats.

The eco-friendly thing to do is get a butterwort, sundew or utriculaira

Those plants will feed on the gnats and the babies and in no time you will be rid of them.

To my knowledge there really isn't a whole lot that will take care of them....they will always be around like Plantakiss said.

Good luck with your plants and let us know how they are doing!

 

[cooper]

Thanks for the input.

I do plan on getting a Butterwort really soon. As for any adverse effects of the Diazinon spray--I can tell it affected my baby common flytrap a little (its leaves look slightly less healthy). But the funny part is, I can't tell any difference from my Green Dragons. I'm still kinda startled by how aggressive these plants are... they seem to take abuse from a newbie pretty well.

Thanks again for the suggestions,

Cooper

 

[cooper]

Thanks for the input.

I do plan on getting a Butterwort really soon. As for any adverse effects of the Diazinon spray--I can tell it affected my baby common flytrap a little (its leaves look slightly less healthy). But the funny part is, I can't tell any difference from my Green Dragons. I'm still kinda startled by how aggressive these plants are... they seem to take abuse from a newbie pretty well.

Thanks again for the suggestions,

Cooper