gnats, harmful?

[nosytrish]

Hey everyone
I have read a few things on the threads about how to kill gnats.
I was just wondering if they were harmful to your cham?
I saw my chameleon eat one a few weeks ago, and was wondering if he may be sick. The plant has been removed from his tank and replaced with new baked soil. There has been no other signs of gnats, we were just wondering if we should be concerned.
Thanks
Trish, Steve, and Zephyr

 

[jake01]

What you're experiencing seem like fungal gnats. I got them when I first started keeping chameleons from the soil being constantly wet due to the dripper water oversaturating the plant, which led to the gnats. For me it was as simple as repositioning the dripper so it drips directly into a sterlite/rubermaid container. This allowed the soil to dry completely, and I've never had a gnat problem since. You can also find countless threads on this subject by searching "gnats" or "fungal gnats."

 

[nosytrish]

Thanks for your reply.
I was just wondering if the ingestion of a gnat is harmful to the chameleon?
Have a good evening,
Trish

 

[sandrachameleon]

no, the gnats will not have harmed the chameleon.
just potentially the plants

 

[tkilgour]

The fungus gnats are so terribly annoying!!!!! A good suggestion is to put an inch or two of sand at the bottom of the plant container then use new sterile soil and then and inch or two at the top. Then after the top layer of sand use decorative rocks. This will block the gnats from penetrating to the soil and reproducing. Hope this makes sense. Also, you can use a container to catch the water.