Gnats are driving me batty

[D3monic]

I seem to have had an explosion of gnats in my varadero tank. I assume they came from some wild collected moss (that I love btw) At first it was just a couple and it was cute watching my frogs chase them around. I came home today and there are hundreds of the darn things in my tank. I put a parmesian cheese shaker in there with some veniger, dish soap and fruit punch in it. Any other suggestions for them. They dont seem to be attracted to the shaker. They are the annoying hyper kind...I wish I could get a picture of them. When walking they are very fast and thier wings twitch really fast.

I really dont want to CO2 bomb the tank because I would have to move all the frogs and I just got a good springtail population going in there.

[froggsong]

It's best to determine what kind of gnats they are, that way you can figure out the best way to trap them. Can you get a picture?

[D3monic]

Ive tried, they are too small. I dont have a macro lens. They have long antanee, long legs pump thier wings fast and run VERY fast about the best discription I can give. They move too fast.

[dbarrm]

Dry Ice, Take the frogs out and put some dry ice in a cup inside the tank. Cover the top with a towel and let the ice out gas. The high concentration of carbon dioxide will kill everything alive in there except the plants. Its how I get rid of ants in my cages.

Dan

[Kyle The Toad]

I had those. Very annoying indeed... Mine just went away after awhile, maybe yours will do the same.

Edit: And by "awhile", I mean the entirety of Summer.

[beckdg]

if they congregate more on one particular thing you might consider that food and make a trap with something that falls into that food group. other than that it's gonna be rough without killing springtails or moving frogs.

i'd personally order a springtail culture and pick up the dry ice. i HATE gnats....

[claymore]

That sucks... I have a small microfauna break out in my Ambystoma opacum 10 gallon tank from wild collected moss... Non of it seems harmful, just some aphids and some millipedes and some local spring tails...

Best advise I can give is always Co2 nuke all moss before you add it to your terrarium.

[Emperornibble]

So about how long do you leave the tank sealed after bombing it. I left mine sealed for 8 hours and had a gnat explosion...

[beckdg]

that should have been plenty of time. one thing you would want to do imo is to let the oxygen escape from the top as the co2 fills in the other areas. once the tank looks adequately filled, then cap it. smaller bugs often have no issues finding a very tiny pocket of o2 to sustain themselves overnight.

other than that... you got me.