Asking them politely to leave doesn’t seem to work.
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If we are growing indoors, imidacloprid and abamectin certainly (in growing plants with no flowering plants around). Any pest can introduce a fungus, virus or bacteria and destroy the entire collection of mothers. Taking an example with humans, when we have parasites or we get sick, we do not use garlic, aloe vera or any other natural remedy, we use medicines to end the disease as soon as possible. Bti and other natural remedies are fine as IPM but they are not a remedy, they do not end the plague.
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I’ve been using liquid BTi, because I’m in a hydro situation. Technically, the dose is constant, because of recirculation and I usually add once per week. But it doesn’t seem to work the same way. There’s not a lot of info around on fungus gnats in flood/drain buckets, or even dosage instructions on the liquid BTi. I’m not 100% certain it works, although it does seem to help a little.
The best thing I’ve found is to do remove each bucket from the tent and dunk/rinse the entire root system in BTi. Mostly the flushing out of the eggs and larvae seems to be a good mitigation technique, but still not a a solution. Physical barriers I think are going to be the way to go for me.
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You may have to increase your dosage of the liquid BTi. Increasing the concentrations used as a percentage of your reservoir sounds like the answer. Or, perhaps your product is defective in some way.
The Gnatrol powder should be possible in your system - it mixes well and doesn’t leave a residue, although it does appear to have a wetting agent included so you may get a tiny bit of foam.
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I have Gnatrol WDG, but I think the liquid works a little better in my system. It’s still gunking up my pumps when I use too much, so that’s annoying. I don’t think BTi is going to be the answer for me. I make my wife use the Gnatrol on her plants in coco though, and that does seem pretty effective. Maybe it doesn’t colonize hydroton very well.
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That seems excessive to me for something as innocuous as fungus gnats.
Overuse of your most powerful tools causes resistance to build up, and weakens those tools. Save them for when you truly need them Please see humanity’s overuse of antibiotics in livestock and humans for just one example of this.
Humans do use aloe Vera as medicine all the time (this is what aspirin is, same active ingredient aspirin is just more shelf stable and simpler to dose).
No need to reach for a jackhammer when a simple pry bar will do the trick.
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Oh no @gmike you mentioned a pesticide here it goes lol
FWIW senor toboggan I don’t even use pesticides for gnats…they just find their back a few weeks later if you have what they like. I find it much easier to add a sanitizer to the water itself. I’m sure you could achieve the same thing or close with bleach or PAA. Also phased out coco for a few reasons, they don’t seem to really thrive in the mineral based medias like they do with coco.
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I just chopped the CQ and since there were a few larvae in the bottom of of the bucket, I ran a test. 1mL into 500mL of water (pretty concentrated) and then I poured it into the bottom. I watched that fucker gleefully swim around it in for 5-10 minutes and even crawl back toward the little puddle as it receded. I don’t think it’s especially toxic to them. Maybe it somehow interrupts one of their reproduction cycles or something, but they don’t seem to care too much.
FWIW I ran it at a level in my reservoir that stunted young plants and it didn’t seem to work either. Maybe I’ve bred a more aggressive breed of fungus gnat over here. Maybe years of growing in coco gave me some vicious Thai fungus gnat that is immune to nuclear winter. 
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Lol. You’ve got me pegged Vern!
I am pretty opposed to pesticides, but they have their place. I am very opposed to the irresponsible use of them.
In this case it seemed pretty over the top to suggest reaching for them right out of the gate.
I’m glad we both can agree they are pretty unnecessary for fungus gnats, at least in most scenarios.
I know hydro or coco grows have more issues, but I got them really bad when I started soil indoors. Using BTI and Tweetmint as a knock down I took them all out. I’ve been keeping up with periodic BTI treatments and have been doing this periodically with all my house plants and haven’t seen them back.
I think having the enzyme cleaner for the knockdown was key to getting then under control in a timely manner.
@lefthandseeds
Good luck. Sounds rough.
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New to me. Here they talk about the larvae ingesting protein crystals created by the bti.
Then major case of acid indigestion til death.
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I wouldn’t say unnecessary, just requires more frequent applications if you don’t change the conditions that harbor them in the first place.
@lefthandseeds well that confirms my suspicions that it must prevent the eggs from hatching, or maybe inhibits breeding somehow, or maybe it takes longer than 15 minutes haha. You noticed it slowing down the veg plants at 1mL/gallon? Mine have never looked better. I did notice a slight slowdown at 2.5mL/gallon. Huh. Wonder what the deal is.
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No, I think I used what it said on the bottle, which was 5mL/gal if I remember right. I used 1mL into 500mL for this experiment.
One thing I yet to figure out is what the shelf life of that stuff is. Never seem to see expiration dates on either the liquid or the store bought puck/bits stuff.
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Are we using the same product? Label use is 0.5mL/gal on mine lol no wonder you had issues
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The stuff I’ve got is 5uL per gallon.
Yeah, try being accurate with that 
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I don’t want to sound stupid. You can’t use pantyhose? You know I always thought it was sand gnats or sand fleas. Seams like you could put it around your air holes. I’m just talking. @lefthandseeds i have seen mites bad. Crazy how they get into your water like that.
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I don’t want to get into debate, just to say that fungus gnats are far from harmless. If you say this, surely your income / your food does not depend on your crops. Fungus gnats carries mites and is vector of viruses and fungus.
I am a healthy person who leads a healthy life and I eat the best I can, but if I have parasites or get sick, I take medicines, as I said.
Abamectin is used in lettuce that we eat up to 8 days before reaching the stores. Respecting safety terms, imidacloprid is no more harmful than neem oil or diatomaceous earth.
Edit: I dont want to dirty the thread, I leave this here, everyone have a good day, peace.
“The worst waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who does not care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions. Never waste time on arguments that don’t make sense… There are people who, no matter how much evidence and evidence we present to them, are not in the capacity to understand, and others are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and all they want is to be right even if they are not. When ignorance screams, intelligence is silent. Your peace and quiet are worth more.”
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I think it’s a very good idea. That’s what I’m trying next. I just have to cover the pots from the start, because I already have the infestation now.
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I’ve found OG Biowar soil drench works great. It has a couple types of Spinosad along with other beneficials. Garlic soil drench and Defense by Pridelands which has garlic and other repellent ingredients both seem to drive them away when used as a drench. Rove Beatles and Hypoapsis Miles are a great combo for predator insects. Beneficial Nematodes help too. I can only speak for soil, but it works. I tried the sand trick too. That works, but I did notice it made the pot stay moist longer as well as threw off my perception of when a pot was light enough to water.
I don’t want to get into a debate either, but Some of the information you have given is untrue and your reasoning and comparisons are off. If you want to overcome a problem the first step is to understand the problem.
Im not saying they are harmless, maybe innocuous was the wrong choices words. What I was getting at is through environmental control and other methods it is often quite easy to eradicate or control them so neonicitinoids probably shouldn’t be your first resort.
To say the any of the neonicitinoids are as safe as DE is just completely false. Many people here grow in their own homes. Are imidacloprid and abamectin the worst things you could be using in a professional facility? Absolutely not, but you probably shouldn’t be eager to use them in a residence.
This is poor reasoning. Fungus gnats are neither a parasite or a disease. And they don’t behave like either. They are very different, Why should they be treated the same?
I’ve already mentioned how this statement is very untrue. Just because something is natural does not mean it is not also effective medicine and vice versa. I know there to be many on this board who use cannabis as a very effective medicine.
Some times that is the right medicine, sometimes not. It’s situation dependent, and that’s exactly what you presented an argument against.
Again, this is a poor representation as to what the gnats are and how they operate. Gnats are more like mosquitos to humans, as you said a vector , sometimes you fog the yard, sometimes you use a screen door, sometimes you use DEET, and it’s all situation dependent.
Yes, for fungus gnats in many cases they are a remedy. As I have mentioned, I knocked out an infestation of them using only BTI and a enzyme cleaner that works well as a knock down for the adult gnats. It seems many others here have had similar success. You are saying they don’t work as a remedy, very much evidence suggests otherwise.
This compares the effect of BTI and neonicitinoids of fungus gnats larvae, yes neonicitinoids kill more advanced larval stages than BTI does. For this reason it is better to use BTI as a preventative than a fix, however with understanding and diligence it can most certainly be a cure.
This is a entirely inaccurate statement made by me. Yes the BTI and the enzyme cleaner are both pesticides. They both kill pests. That post I made was very poorly worded.
You are correct that I do not depend on a crop for my livelihood, that does not mean that I don’t know how pesticides work.
Most here are not operating a large horticultural facility. If they are, and don’t know how to deal with fungus gnats they have larger problems because they are likely quite under qualified for their chosen profession. At the scale most here are undertaking using neonicitinoids is just unnecessary. You suggested once you have an infestation, these are the only sensible option.
At the same time you compared using BTI for fungus gnats to using garlic to treat parasites in humans. That is some anti BTI propaganda, or just a terrible misunderstanding of how all the things involved in that statement works or what they are.
This forum is here for discourse. If you want to debate wether or not your suggested method is best for treating a fungus gnats infestation we can do that, or we can simply discuss the merit of different fungus gnats treatments. If you do not want your ideas and statements challenged or questioned you should not post them on a public forum.
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