Scarid Fly and Fungus Gnat

[Kimba]

Billions of the little black mutha's. The Gnat's are American for Fly's.They totally infested my first crop. You could see the young "hoppers" in the thousand during the flood skimming on the surface. When I moved a expanded clay rock I saw little black flys and larger white wrigglers escaping to the lower levels. Since my crop had just been sprayed (and shocked by) for the ratty spider mites with mite spray I was reluctant to soak my plants in the white drench stuff to kill the fly's. Unfortunately I could see the plant's suffering as well as losing several of my clones to wrigglers eating the roots. 2 weeks before scheduled harvest I drenched. The plants took another fortnight to recover, never to achieve their best. The last crop I changed to a drip, coco system which the flies love. Luckily I discovered Bio-Bugs when looking for something to help my plants recover. The bugs worked like a dream. The flies that had returned after the drenched died in their thousands. I could see healthy new root growth in a week. Although the bugs never totally wiped the flies out a balance is achieved and the plants thrive. The cursed mites strangely never reappeared. I have recently given up checking the leaves under a magnifying glass. I think the bugs might even be part responsible for that.

[Ferre]

What bugs do you have on there? And where did you get them? We had some topics about them in the past but people were a little scared of "introducing new bugs" into Australia at that time becouse most companies offering predator bugs had to ship them from overseas, when there's an Aussie company you can get the bugs from I'm sure lots of our members would like to use bugs too against white fly, tripps and so on becouse it's a very natural way of getting rid of pests and you don't have to spray soap or chemicals on your buds, afterall we smoke the stuff and the less chemicals the better. Me personal I always have some different predator bugs in my growroom, just to prevent and I never have any pests.

[Oblivion]

yeah we got aussie predator bugs, ya go out the back catch some spiders and shit and put em in ya grow room hehe

[Kimba]

I'll elaborate. Bio-Bugs is an australian product made by 21st Century Gardening. As to introducing stable bio-predators it is not. What it does do is introduce a bio-freindly mold and thus displacing the harmful molds and producing nutreints beneficial to the plant. It also prevents nematode formation and aids in removal of dead root and leaf matter.Molds are a large group of bacteria growing in a colony. The Cana web site has links to it's Trichaderma which is one of the many bacteria's in "Bio-Bugs". Been a big Cana fan I have used little but their products. The exception for the bugs was made for two reasons: The first is Cana's Trichaderma isn't avaliable in Australia, the second is it's Australian product. Eventually I was considering introducing spider-predators myself too but have since found the population of the mite's had been descimated. It could be 1) the strain or 2) the cold weather or 3) the Bio-Bugs. I think it's a combination of the last two.

I also use a folar spray made by Evolution Solutions called leaf, flower and fruit spray in addition to Superthrive (for the first fortnight of flowering) with astonising results. I also have kept my PH at 5.2 to 5.7 with a ppm of 1800 to 2200. :mellow:

My last attempt to kill them (the f ly') is deris dust with little visible affect. I am going to invest in an ultra voilet zapper. I am sick of looking at them even if they have done no damage lately.