A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 look like fruit flies on steroids!

I've started seeing these flies in my house latly. At first I thought they were fruit flies but they started getting bigger. At first glance the steroid factor made them look kind of like fleas but they have more standard house fly shape. I would best discribe them as a fruit fly with longer wings in comparison to body of fruit fly and over all slightly bigger with more of a house fly shape. havent seen anything wrong with the plants but that's where they hang out(specificly orange tree and sweet pepper seedlings. Thank in advance.

Fungus Gnats, there are a few posts in the houseplant threads here, type it into search And water less!

While the pepper seeds were geminating I had them in a transparent plastic box and come to think of it they were pretty wet for basicly 3-4 weeks and a few of them that I threw out had a bit of botrytis. The info I found was helpful enough, I have some sand so I'm going to put a layer on the soil. A few questions still. Do they lay eggs? (If so are they harmfull to the plants? Are they killed by soaping) or is it just a shure sine that I have mold?
Thanks again!

did i answer this question in the other list?

Hello Buglady.
On the other list you said without further info you could not be specific so I don't know.

Here is what I wrote in a previous post...

Fungus gnats are small, grey flies about 1/4 of an inch long. They are found in moist, peat based potting soils that are rich in organic matter. Damage is done by the larvae and can be fatal to young plants. Adults may transmit crown or root rot.

The adult female will deposit between 100 - 150 eggs on the soil surface near the plant's stem. The eggs hatch in 4 - 6 days into white larvae with black heads. They feed on decaying organic matter and plant tissue. They pupate into adults 3 - 4 days later.

To control, reduce the amount of watering. Allow the top layer of potting soil to dry out. most larvae are seen in the top inch of soil. If you cover the soil with a layer of sand, the adult may not lay her eggs in it.

Yellow sticky tapes can be used to trap the flying adults.

You can drench the soil with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) or apply preditory nematodes. Chemical controls can not be used with Bt or nematodes, but include pyrethrin or diazion. Chemicals have to be applied every few days to attack all stages of the insects development.

Good luck!

Are they very noticably grey cause as far as I've seen they seem black. I don't like the idea of chemicals so I'm glad thier's alturnitives. Also they don't seem quite that big but mabey with thier wings and I haven't seen that many for shure. Thanks

I'm with you on that one.....don't like to use chemicals....especially when the other methods work just as well. They are sorta grey/black in color.....and it's a good thing if you haven't noticed too many of them....yet.

And definitly not when it's in your bedroom!
Thier's been one flying around all week, Thier was two but one landed on my keyboard while I was typing and to quote "jgyffjjuyt" that's was what happend. I'm still getting used to manualy killing bugs though at least I have a reason now as aposed to when I was five or so.