Stressed by Gnats?

Probably receptive with these kinds of colors when I picked her up. But she also hates gnats.
I’ve had gnats and it never seemed to bother my chameleons. One had ghost ants and another had whiteflies...neither was bothered by them. Of course all of these things bother the heck out of me! I’ve got 2 katchys and sundews, which has made a tremendous difference. However, somehow the stupid gnats have invaded my roach bins in the garage so the battle continues.
 
I’ve had gnats and it never seemed to bother my chameleons. One had ghost ants and another had whiteflies...neither was bothered by them. Of course all of these things bother the heck out of me! I’ve got 2 katchys and sundews, which has made a tremendous difference. However, somehow the stupid gnats have invaded my roach bins in the garage so the battle continues.
If they arent climbers, a yellow sticky trape or vaseline on the inside of lid or top of container will help catch them
 
Hatch some baby mantids and throw a bunch in. She’ll enjoy the food and they will eat the gnats. Keeping the top soil of any house plants dry will help, but practically impossible in an enclosure. Avoid sticky traps nearby.

The Katchy helps, as do nearby carnivorous plants like Sundews, Butterworts, Fly Traps, and Nepenthes. But the baby mantids work best for me.
I ended up buying four ooths some nematodes (that I will end up using to treat a household issue and not in my enclosure who knew they work on subterranean termites I always thought orkin was telling me there was a unicorn in my muffler ) a nep and 4 sundews very excited for the mantids to hatch. The sundews are shipping and the nep loves my led and is making new pitchers now. I'm going to build a terrarium just for a mantid since they will be in abundance.

I used a twist tie to attach it to a branch in the enclosure the instructions said wait 8 weeks so fingers crossed


I can't justify plugging anything else in so katchy is out for me but I will share my results and do wish everyone a happy spring and best of luck vs gnats and pests.

@Andrew1283 best of luck you've got some great options that will be low stress on your chamley us know what works for you !
 
If they arent climbers, a yellow sticky trape or vaseline on the inside of lid or top of container will help catch them
Vaseline it is! Thanks!
Could those be phorid flies? I had phorid flies in my roach bin; got rid of them by:
  1. Cleaning the bin out
  2. Putting more ventilation (screened openings) in; they seemed to need damp/wet conditions.
No, I think they’re just regular soil gnats or possibly fruit flies. I mist my bins every now and then and think I may have overdone it. Plus I gave my roaches a treat of banana...one of their favorite foods.
 
Could those be phorid flies? I had phorid flies in my roach bin; got rid of them by:
  1. Cleaning the bin out
  2. Putting more ventilation (screened openings) in; they seemed to need damp/wet conditions.
I have attached some photos from the glue trap in my Katchy. They look like gnats, a mosquito, and one small moth to me.
 

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So here is a pic from a butterwort doing its job-even the stalk is sticky, see the gnat on stalk and leaf on right. Since I took this pic there are lots more.

It is in the enclosure for the k. boehmei; even though he loves and stalks fruit flies he ignores these. I'm not sure they bother him, but it bugs me seeing them bounce around in there.
 

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I did not expect to be getting a lesson in gnat vs phorid fly identification today but here we are! Some appear to be gnats while others are phorid flies. Here are a couple identification photos of gnats and phorid flies. The third pic is a zoomed in shot from my bug catcher. It looks like I have a mixed bag of nuisance bugs :)
 

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You can easily tell if you have phorid flies...they rum across surfaces in a stop 'n go motion rather than flying.

There are a few things of "importance" in knowing if its phorid flies or gnats.

Gnats are not spreaders of disease as a rule...they tend to fly more phorid flies do.

"Because it frequents unsanitary areas (with the ability to spread disease-causing bacteria onto food products), this fly is of particular concern to hospitals, healthcare facilities, and restaurants. Open wounds of patients in healthcare facilities often house phorid fly larvae"...
https://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/phorid-flies.htm

Phorid flies can destroy your chameleon eggs without you even noticing until it's too late.

They can get into the fridge or sealed containers that you would never believe they can get past the seal/gasket of....so you really want to get rid of them.

They move rapidly...like to fly at your eyes (can cause conjunctivitis) jump into your food...breed in your garbage can...sit on poop...etc.
They are so hard to get rid of because they like moisture, will get into the food you're providing for the insects, live in your drains.

Hope this does t scare anyone!
Hope you get rid of them ...no matter what they are!
 
Phorid larvae look like really small grains of rice; sometimes they move slightly.
I cleaned out my bins entirely, being sure to wipe out (figuratively and literally) all the larvae.
Then I added cricket screen (fine screen from a cricket shipping container) vents to the bin to dry out surplus moisture. It took 2 round of this cleaning (I may have missed some eggs or something), then they were gone and haven't returned. Bins are kept dryer now (except the one I'm attempting to breed dubias in).
 
I had a harder time getting rid of them because I had tortoises, beardies, water dragons and a few other things... and they ate veggies and greens. Phorid flies loved that I did that. The tortoises also needed a water area so things could never dry out.
 
Phorid larvae look like really small grains of rice; sometimes they move slightly.
I cleaned out my bins entirely, being sure to wipe out (figuratively and literally) all the larvae.
Then I added cricket screen (fine screen from a cricket shipping container) vents to the bin to dry out surplus moisture. It took 2 round of this cleaning (I may have missed some eggs or something), then they were gone and haven't returned. Bins are kept dryer now (except the one I'm attempting to breed dubias in).
I think the Katchy from Amazon caught a lot of them and cutting back on watering my plants helped too. I’m going to sit the lay bin up on a plastic stand so there is no still water accumulating under there. I feel like I’m winning the battle!
 

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I think the Katchy from Amazon caught a lot of them and cutting back on watering my plants helped too. I’m going to sit the lay bin up on a plastic stand so there is no still water accumulating under there. I feel like I’m winning the battle!
Katchy’s are great! The cats kept knocking over my sundews in the garage so I had to put them back in their safe window and rely only on a Katchy. The other day I noticed no more gnats & an almost full Katchy pad. (y)
 
Katchy’s are great! The cats kept knocking over my sundews in the garage so I had to put them back in their safe window and rely only on a Katchy. The other day I noticed no more gnats & an almost full Katchy pad. (y)
When my wife’s cat was in his prime he was able to catch gnats and flies mid air. He would swipe them into his mouth with his paw in an amazing ninja move. He’s older now but he could have solved this problem!
 
This is how mine looks lately.
Looks exactly like my girl when she was receptive. It was still another month before she laid (2 days ago!) but I have a gnat problem too and my cham will eat one every so often but they still bother her if you have a ton like I do. This is what I did. Took all my effected house plants outside after removing the top inch of soil. Took out the wet, stinky lay bin she has had in there the last 6 weeks and rinsed off her plants and sprayed the one with gnats (umbrella tree) with a soap/water mixture and covered the soil with rocks! It’s hard to control gnats in a chameleon enclosure but it seems to have helped. I also put sticky traps on the outside of her cage so when I open it and they fly out they get caught in it.
 
Has anyone tried these

KATCHY Indoor Insect and Flying Bugs Trap Fruit Fly Gnat Mosquito Killer with UV Light Fan Sticky Glue Boards No Zapper Black, Manual​

They are on amazon and have good reviews.
 
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