Mosquito dunks - Anyone use em?

[zor]

I seem to have a recurring fungas gnat problem. Initially, I tried putting up some sticky traps but the gnats seem to avoid them.

I have some mosquito dunks on hand, however, I've never used them before. Am i correct in thinking that should crumble the dunks and 'top dress' the soil? Is so, what is a guideline for how much 'dunk' material per gallon of soil?

Will the dunks affect ph, plant health etc?

 

[zymos]

I think you'd be better off with Diatomacious Earth. I have some granular BT, which is just a different form of the "dunks", and the brand I have is supposedly very specific for mosquitos.

But to answer your second question-it won't affect the plants in any way...

 

[Pornstar]

i put a piece of my dunk in the water can/bucket and they break up and slowly go into the soil

 

[10k]

Initially, I tried putting up some sticky traps but the gnats seem to avoid them.

Are you sure they're fungus gnats and not thrips ?
The reason I ask is fungus gnats are attracted towards yellow sticky traps, but thrips are attracted to the 'blue' sticky traps and plant odors.

On the dunks, the BT needs to be in the water so it can drench thru and into the soil where the larvae are busy chomping away on the root system(s).

 

[Organic*Shaman]

I know I am jumping into this conversation a little late, but for anyone who is is still interested I used mosquito dunks a while back. I top dressed just like you would use with a slow release fert and also broke some up in water that I poured over the soil. Coupled with fly paper it seemed to work fairly well on fungus gnats. They say that if you cut up a potatoe and put it on top of the soil the fungus gnat larva will be attracted to the potatoe but I never had much luck with that. Hope that helps.

Peace all

 

[smokedoja]

yea me too, the potatoe never worked!, just got moldy potatoes

 

[stretchpup]

Yes, dunks rock.

Break em up into a finer powder/grit, then sprinkle on tops of all your soil. Don't need much, tho it won't hurt your plants at all. Less than a tablespoon.

Bye bye gnats. After the cycle of adults die no more will hatch.

I even break dunks up and keep them in the soil bins out back I have for storage. When I open them up I don't worry about gnats...

 

[The_Leader]

stretch must live close to me. top dressing works fine. If you have the urge to kill the larve eating your roots faster? here's what I do/done. 5 gals water w/1/2 plunk (broken up) 24 hrs to activate BTi in plunk then water as usual. the plunk (BTi) only last 48 hours so you must repeat.


peroxide also kills larve, but kills all benificial microbs ect. using peroxide requires watering w/2tbs per gal plain water. wait 3O mins then rewater w/nutes. again you must repeat in 2-4 days to kill new hatchlings

 

[daddyweez2000]

I used the dunks by crumbling it up in my e-z cloner,it worked. I have also heard of the Diatomacious Earth on top of the soil or by covering the top of the soil with sand so they cant get to the soil and lay eggs.

 

[The_Leader]

DE kill ALL bugs. It is bad for the enviroment imho and in many others opinion. If you use DE please do not discard as soil.

DE only works on what touches it. If you use DE. Just draw a line around your grow w/the DE. NO crawling bugs can live after walking in DE. DE cuts them to ribbons.

DE just keeps adult gnats from landing and laying eggs. A top dressing of perlite (i use) or sand (to heavy imho).


This is 15yrs talking.

edit. stoner moment. the perlite top dressing will work as well as DE.