Gnat Dry Fly
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How do you kill fungus gnats on houseplants?
These little bugs have been flying around my house for a couple weeks, and I always thought they were fruit flies. I did a little more research tonight and realized that they're probably fungus gnats since there's no rotting food anywhere. I don't think there's a lot of them since I only see 1 or 2 a day.
I read that a way to get rid of them would be to let your plants dry out, but would using diluted hydrogen peroxide work to kill the larvae instantly?
Diluted hydrogen peroxide might kill the larvae, but it would probably also kill the top inch or two of roots on your plants, so I wouldn't advise it. It would also knock back populations of bacteria and fungi in the pot, which sounds like a good thing, but unfortunately it's the pernicious bacteria and fungi, the ones that attack your plants, that recover first. Diluted peroxide just knocks back their competition.
If you create a barrier between the fungus gnats and the soil they lay their eggs in, you can break the cycle. The barrier has to breathe and let water pass, so it can't be plastic or anything inorganic. What I do to control fungus gnats in houseplants and container vegetable gardens is to mulch the top of the pot with a layer of coir (ground coconut husk) or whole sphagnum moss. The barrier keeps fertile females from laying eggs on the soil surface, while preventing adults that emerge from pupae in the soil from getting to the surface to mate. You don't have to do it to every pot, because fungus gnats key in on the pots with ideal conditions. Just focus on the pots where the fungus gnats are fluttering.
Coir comes in bricks, and you just soak a brick in a bucket with a gallon of water, then break it up and spread the fibrous slurry an inch thick over the top of the pot. Whole sphagnum moss is used to line hanging wire planting baskets, and also works, but you need a 2" layer because it's coarser.
It's a good idea to peel the coir cap back from the stem of the plant for an inch all around, to prevent stem rots.
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