# fungus gnats



## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

I have zillions of fungus gnats. They come along with the plants... I was thinking about them today, and wondering if anybody has used them for frog food. 

Advantages:
Smaller than D. melanogaster (for froglets?)
Seem to breed like crazy

Disadvantages:
I have no idea how to culture them (and it is hard enough to get rid of them)
It would help if there were a wingless mutation.


Anybody given this any thought?


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2005)

they seem to thrive on wet soil. A proffessor at work has filled the botany lab with lots of potato plants, the soil stays wet, and now there are thousands of gnats flying around. The fact that the botany proffessor (a different one) is keeping a kiddie pool full of stagnant water with rotting plants in it doesn't help the situation.  

I have never had dendros so I dont know about thier speed. But a small and fast and very agile tree frog (ex: spring peeper) can keep up with the gnats.

How do you suppose you can find a wingless one to start that line? I wonder if you can start culturing them like ff's and select for the flightless ones.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Every time I bring in new potted plants, those little buggers come with them and are generally more annoying than helpful (since they are in frog tanks). While its entertaining to see my imis/inters and truncatus make idiots of themselves trying to catch them.

I think they'd be something to look into for incredibly small froglets but are so fast... and generally so small for our frogs that I don't think the culturing of them is worth the annoyance of them in your living area.

Plus, finding a genetic form that doesn't fly... have fun with that lol.


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

KeroKero said:


> Every time I bring in new potted plants, those little buggers come with them and are generally more annoying than helpful (since they are in frog tanks). While its entertaining to see my imis/inters and truncatus make idiots of themselves trying to catch them.
> 
> I think they'd be something to look into for incredibly small froglets but are so fast... and generally so small for our frogs that I don't think the culturing of them is worth the annoyance of them in your living area.
> 
> Plus, finding a genetic form that doesn't fly... have fun with that lol.


Yep, they are fast. If there was a reliable way to culture them, it would be fairly easy to isolate a wingless variety. Grow enough of them, maybe expose them to some mutagens, select your phenotypes. That is standard genetics, how do you think the original drosophila mutations were isolated? Actually fly mutants can be generated more directly, now, and I guess it would be possible to do this more rationally in the molecular biology lab. Of course that is money and time that I don't have.


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## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

Maybe I'm mistaken on what I have been calling "fungus gnats"... that by the way I cannot get rid of. The things I have flying around are larger than hydei, black or dark grey, and semi-triangular in shape (from the wings). Any idea what those are, and better yet, how to get rid of them?


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

JoshKaptur said:


> Maybe I'm mistaken on what I have been calling "fungus gnats"... that by the way I cannot get rid of. The things I have flying around are larger than hydei, black or dark grey, and semi-triangular in shape (from the wings). Any idea what those are, and better yet, how to get rid of them?


There might be more than one species (or even genus) of what is called fungus gnats. The ones I see most often look fairly large while flying, but they are largely wing. The body is quite small.

Regardless, the only thing that actually works in my opinion is something called Gnatrol. Which is a bacteria, Bacillius israeliensis or something like that. Gets into the gut of the larvae and ... well, it ain't pretty. Should be safe for frogs though. You can find it sometimes at hydroponics stores. It works pretty well, but is a bit expensive and I ran out a few years ago.


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