# Small Black Flies in Viv



## Sam84 (Jul 13, 2011)

Hi 

I've been having a tidy up of my breaded dragon's viv - and have notice quite a few small black flies - both alive and dead. i have removed as many as i can - but wondered if they will cause my bd a problem?? will it just be a case of changing the substrate and disinfecting everything in the viv? Or are there other things i need to do aswell??

My bd seems fine, eating, basking, pooing as usual.

Thanks in advace

Sam x


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

I have this problem with my water dragons at the minute!:censor:
I clean their dishes daily, for the minute I have stoped putting fresh veg inside because they are fruit flies.

Spot cleaned daily, I even striped the enitire enclosure the other day and soaked it in hot soapy water but they are still there, I hope they dissapear soon.

I just dunno what to do, I was thinking about those fly sticky things but I a not sure if they are toxic to water dragons or not? so for the minute I aint chancing it.


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## woodrott (Sep 14, 2008)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> I have this problem with my water dragons at the minute!:censor:
> I clean their dishes daily, for the minute I have stoped putting fresh veg inside because they are fruit flies.
> 
> Spot cleaned daily, I even striped the enitire enclosure the other day and soaked it in hot soapy water but they are still there, I hope they dissapear soon.
> ...


 
i agree there fruit flies
its the time of the year
they should go in a month or so
just make sure any fruit and veg is renewed every day


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

I have the same issue in my ackie viv. They thrive in the soil and high humidity in my viv, the heat and amount of moisture makes it ideal for egg laying. Theres obviously something they like in your dragons viv too, If you want rid of them remove all substrate and replace, disinfect everything and they should be gone. I dont see them doing any harm to your reps though.


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## russndex (Feb 12, 2011)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> I have the same issue in my ackie viv. They thrive in the soil and high humidity in my viv, the heat and amount of moisture makes it ideal for egg laying. Theres obviously something they like in your dragons viv too, If you want rid of them remove all substrate and replace, disinfect everything and they should be gone. I dont see them doing any harm to your reps though.


Same problem here about three weeks ago, nightmare for me as it was my 10 x 5 black throat enclosure! They stuck to one half of it for some reason so i disenfected the floor under the substrate and that did the trick.


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

russndex said:


> Same problem here about three weeks ago, nightmare for me as it was my 10 x 5 black throat enclosure! They stuck to one half of it for some reason so i disenfected the floor under the substrate and that did the trick.


I dont really want to disinfect to be honest. Ive grown quite attached to the colonies of microbiology living in my substrate. I have cricket eggs and pinheads in there that have been laid by the free roaming crickets. Ive seen a red runner roach egg case in there along with all the microscopic beings that eat all the poo. The flies dont bother me, but If it was in a dragons viv I would probably sort it all out.


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

woodrott said:


> i agree there fruit flies
> its the time of the year
> they should go in a month or so
> just make sure any fruit and veg is renewed every day


 
I hate them! 
thanks for the response though dude.

they don't just annoy my water dragons but they annoy me too.


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## rep-it (Aug 26, 2007)

in had a problem with tiny flies recently, they came in the substrate i brought.


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## jpharro (Sep 17, 2011)

i hate the little flies they are soo fustrating for me too :evil:


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## Sam M (Sep 17, 2011)

We've got loads of em in our prep room at work at the moment >< It gets cleaned and sprayed everyday and they just pop back over night -_-"


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

Salazare is declaring war against them tomorrow! I have had enough!


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## jpharro (Sep 17, 2011)

i hope you win hahaha


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## scotty667 (Oct 14, 2011)

jpharro said:


> i hope you win hahaha


 you will never win they will get away some how i had them for weeks and they just don't go


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

jpharro said:


> i hope you win hahaha


me too :devil: the intention is to remove all the animals into temporary enclosures into the other bedroom and fumigate the room entirely in fly spray! wash all the enclosures and put them sticky fly things up! 


the worst part is there seems to be more of them since this morning.

I am going in aggresively! can't be holding back now can we?


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

scotty667 said:


> you will never win they will get away some how i had them for weeks and they just don't go


 
better to try than not! how dare they!


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## Sam M (Sep 17, 2011)

We've fumigated our prep room a few times! No avail! Might send an army of lizards in to eat them all...


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

Sam M said:


> We've fumigated our prep room a few times! No avail! Might send an army of lizards in to eat them all...


 
well if mine had any sense they would do exacly just that but nooooooooooo!


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## scotty667 (Oct 14, 2011)

think i might put some of them sticky things around the tanks and by the vents :no1:


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

Give them an eviction notice and be kind about it, why does it have to always be about killing


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> Give them an eviction notice and be kind about it, why does it have to always be about killing


 
HAHAHAH awesome lol.


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## Ben678 (Jul 29, 2009)

I had the same problem a few years back but one day they just 'dissapeared' :lol2:


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## jimmythetramp (Jul 6, 2009)

good people of RFUK i too am a cursed by this plague of fruit flies! so much so that when i moved the roach colony out of the bedroom a actual physical black cloud of doom rose through the mesh in the roof in their tub! now as you expected i got angry... very angry... but i stopped took a deep breath and poured myself a glass of red wine and contemplated the situation, i put my wine down and thought of a plan... i immediately moved the roaches outside and fully cleaned the enclosure out and jet hosed the inside! new egg crates the lot! well i've decided that they are not going back in the room for the time being but upon my triumphant return into the room i gazed into my wine glass and what should i see but half a empires worth of fruit flies wings up in my wine dead as a dodo! the rest are being lured into several moth traps but i can honestly say that trying to use a oversize novelty butterfly net does not work what so ever, so whatever you do, do not try that 

the only thing i can think of now is to turn my room into a giant freezer after removing all the animals obviously... may be a good idea as i've gave up on the wine and just opened a Guinness!

Happy hunting guys!

:2thumb:


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## p3_arme (Nov 6, 2009)

Better yet, bring in a few house gecko's they'll sort out the problem, they did for us  1 of 3 of ours managed to leg it, the moment I'd opened his box to put him into his new home, he lived in our apartment very happily for three years. The other two did go into their new home and are still going.

(okay he had help from the wax moths, spiders, & us misting the wall for him)


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

Cant you just chase the flys with a hover? and then remove the hover bag or what ever outside? into a black bag and put the black bag in the freezer? just a thought lol


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

jimmythetramp said:


> good people of RFUK i too am a cursed by this plague of fruit flies! so much so that when i moved the roach colony out of the bedroom a actual physical black cloud of doom rose through the mesh in the roof in their tub! now as you expected i got angry... very angry... but i stopped took a deep breath and poured myself a glass of red wine and contemplated the situation, i put my wine down and thought of a plan... i immediately moved the roaches outside and fully cleaned the enclosure out and jet hosed the inside! new egg crates the lot! well i've decided that they are not going back in the room for the time being but upon my triumphant return into the room i gazed into my wine glass and what should i see but half a empires worth of fruit flies wings up in my wine dead as a dodo! the rest are being lured into several moth traps but i can honestly say that trying to use a oversize novelty butterfly net does not work what so ever, so whatever you do, do not try that
> 
> the only thing i can think of now is to turn my room into a giant freezer after removing all the animals obviously... may be a good idea as i've gave up on the wine and just opened a Guinness!
> 
> ...


 
Thats it... youve solved our problem. Pour a glass of wine, leave the room, and wait for all the flies to start drinking the wine, kidney failure all round and its a fly free zone! Bosh


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

wilko92 said:


> Cant you just chase the flys with a hover? and then remove the hover bag or what ever outside? into a black bag and put the black bag in the freezer? just a thought lol


What about the microscopic eggs in the substrate?


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> Thats it... youve solved our problem. Pour a glass of wine, leave the room, and wait for all the flies to start drinking the wine, kidney failure all round and its a fly free zone! Bosh


 What if your reptile then eats the flys you'll end up with a rather larey rep! haha


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> What about the microscopic eggs in the substrate?


 Wait for them to hatch and hoover! away again


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

wilko92 said:


> What if your reptile then eats the flys you'll end up with a rather larey rep! haha


This reminds me of an event that happened a few months ago...

My old housemate caught a huge black cricket in a bacardi bottle before and put it in my bed. This cricket was pissed out of its brain and stumbling around in the bottom of the bottle apparently, I, at he time was unaware of this and while laying in bed found the cricket crawling on me, so I picked it out and put it in the dragons viv. It was quickly demolished, about 10 minutes later I noticed that the dragon was acting funny, stumbling a bit, falling over when getting off her log etc, I was a little concerned and thought I might have to ring the vet in the morning because I was worried I had poisoned her if the cricket had crawled through some bleach or something, she conked out pretty soon and I went and spoke to my housemate about it, to which he told me about his cricket prank. Needless to say she woke up the next morning and didnt eat all day because of her BD hangover. :lol2: ....


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> This reminds me of an event that happened a few months ago...
> 
> My old housemate caught a huge black cricket in a bacardi bottle before and put it in my bed. This cricket was pissed out of its brain and stumbling around in the bottom of the bottle apparently, I, at he time was unaware of this and while laying in bed found the cricket crawling on me, so I picked it out and put it in the dragons viv. It was quickly demolished, about 10 minutes later I noticed that the dragon was acting funny, stumbling a bit, falling over when getting off her log etc, I was a little concerned and thought I might have to ring the vet in the morning because I was worried I had poisoned her if the cricket had crawled through some bleach or something, she conked out pretty soon and I went and spoke to my housemate about it, to which he told me about his cricket prank. Needless to say she woke up the next morning and didnt eat all day because of her BD hangover. :lol2: ....


 hahaha i thought i was a light weight im sure i could handle more then one drunk crix haha!


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## scotty667 (Oct 14, 2011)

If you really need rid of them go buy some baby whites tree frogs they will eat all of them lol they love them:lol2:


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

War has been declared at 7.48 Wednesday November 02 2011. :censor::censor::devil:


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> War has been declared at 7.48 Wednesday November 02 2011. :censor::censor::devil:


Dig in boys! its going to be a long winter at war!


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## sammiolliver (Aug 3, 2010)

I has this problem, had to throw away a big bag of substrate coz they found that grr! Replaced substrate in my chams viv with newspaper, looks rubbish but seems to have done the trick! Strange, they left my uros alone :s


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> Dig in boys! its going to be a long winter at war!


 
they seem to have multiplied by loads over night.
I think they knew.!


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## SuperSpeedyWheels (Jun 23, 2011)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> they seem to have multiplied by loads over night.
> I think they knew.!


Sent in the big boys from the left flank to bulk up the front line.... bring out the RAID!


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

SuperSpeedyWheels said:


> Sent in the big boys from the left flank to bulk up the front line.... bring out the RAID!


 
hahahahah LOL!


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

reading the last few post certainly made my morning :lol2: 
As i have a damsel fly in my CWD's viv i done a little reading on them, they eat flys would it be worth trying to get hold of the blue common damsel fly as they would eat off any new flys that are hatching etc and easyer to get rid of? there less of a pest as there quite like looking things


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

wilko92 said:


> reading the last few post certainly made my morning :lol2:
> As i have a damsel fly in my CWD's viv i done a little reading on them, they eat flys would it be worth trying to get hold of the blue common damsel fly as they would eat off any new flys that are hatching etc and easyer to get rid of? there less of a pest as there quite like looking things


a fly is a fly and fly's have no place in my home!
hmph the sheer cheek!

I have just removed the spiders and millipede from the animal room.
Sprayed some fly spray and I ended up inhailing most of it which caused me the need to use my inhailer, one flew into my eye ball too, see they are divebombing me.


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> a fly is a fly and fly's have no place in my home!
> hmph the sheer cheek!
> 
> I have just removed the spiders and millipede from the animal room.
> Sprayed some fly spray and I ended up inhailing most of it which caused me the need to use my inhailer, one flew into my eye ball too, see they are divebombing me.


 yeahh but a damsel fly has got to be easy to splat then a tiny lil fruit fly haha! but another idea, could you posion some fruit and leave i on the side a lil dangerious i know for the fact of the chance being digested by reps, but do it outside the tank and make sure you cean up the dead ones asoon as you see them? that way if they have eggs it will kill the eggs too as the carryier has posion?


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

wilko92 said:


> yeahh but a damsel fly has got to be easy to splat then a tiny lil fruit fly haha! but another idea, could you posion some fruit and leave i on the side a lil dangerious i know for the fact of the chance being digested by reps, but do it outside the tank and make sure you cean up the dead ones asoon as you see them? that way if they have eggs it will kill the eggs too as the carryier has posion?


 
I like this warfare tactic!
Fly spray and bleach on a peice of fruit, mwhaha. I will even hang a fly sticky thing just above it to attract them incase any are lucky enough to survive.


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> I like this warfare tactic!
> Fly spray and bleach on a peice of fruit, mwhaha. I will even hang a fly sticky thing just above it to attract them incase any are lucky enough to survive.


 another idea buy a jar of honey and leave half in the jar and the other half in another jar leave it there for awile they will get stuck in it and then stuggle and float down they do that kinda thing at alton towers just a bigger scale im guessing they go for sweet tasteing and sweet smelling things, anti freeze that you use for cars coolants it taste very sweet but its very deadly to humans anyway, not sure if it works for flys but might be worth giving it ago : victory:


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

wilko92 said:


> another idea buy a jar of honey and leave half in the jar and the other half in another jar leave it there for awile they will get stuck in it and then stuggle and float down they do that kinda thing at alton towers just a bigger scale im guessing they go for sweet tasteing and sweet smelling things, anti freeze that you use for cars coolants it taste very sweet but its very deadly to humans anyway, not sure if it works for flys but might be worth giving it ago : victory:


The only honey I have in this house is manuka honey and the price of that stuff no thankyou! lmao. costs £20 a jar and I am not going shopping for another 2 days yet.

but I will bare this in mind if my other plans begin to fail.


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## Sam84 (Jul 13, 2011)

Thanks guys for all your replies!! I've only just managed to get back online - the joys of doing random shifts!!!

Wow - i didn't think litte black flies would create such a response - let alone all out war!! :lol2:
I think my battle plan will be new substate a disinfectant - coupled with the element of surprise!! But will try sme honey too!!


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> The only honey I have in this house is manuka honey and the price of that stuff no thankyou! lmao. costs £20 a jar and I am not going shopping for another 2 days yet.
> 
> but I will bare this in mind if my other plans begin to fail.
> image


 £20!!! for some honey, i think you might wanna buy some marbles you apear to have lost yours :lol2:


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

wilko92 said:


> £20!!! for some honey, i think you might wanna buy some marbles you apear to have lost yours :lol2:


I have my reasons and no it isn't cheap. 
but I will be sure to have that stuff stored away with any reptile in my home.


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## ..:: F1D0 ::.. (May 13, 2009)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> I have my reasons and no it isn't cheap.
> but I will be sure to have that stuff stored away with any reptile in my home.


Manuka honey - isn't this supposed to help as a "healing aid" or something like that?! I remember when i posted a topic about a "DIY Lizard Health Kit" and people suggested i get a jar as it could help.....not sure how true that is :lol2:


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

..:: F1D0 ::.. said:


> Manuka honey - isn't this supposed to help as a "healing aid" or something like that?! I remember when i posted a topic about a "DIY Lizard Health Kit" and people suggested i get a jar as it could help.....not sure how true that is :lol2:


 
Mate I am not going to lie, I had already taken it to the vets before hand, I too had my doubts ontil I took my poorly water dragon to see Wildlifewarrior, great guy I might add, he gave me some great advice, he gave it some manuka honey and almost immediately it began eating by itself again and became more active, it also went back to a green colour.

I was gobsmaked at the result.

It had refused to eat for 5 months, had severe calcium deficiency, was drinking all the time, he is still with me now.

So yeah it is essential in my opinion, beat ten tonnes out of some of our own methods.


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## ..:: F1D0 ::.. (May 13, 2009)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> Mate I am not going to lie, I had already taken it to the vets before hand, I too had my doubts ontil I took my poorly water dragon to see Wildlifewarrior, great guy I might add, he gave me some great advice, he gave it some manuka honey and almost immediately it began eating by itself again and became more active, it also went back to a green colour.
> 
> I was gobsmaked at the result.
> 
> ...


I thought as much. For a minute, i thought i was going to get laughed at but i *KNEW *i had heard it before, and come to think of it, i think it was Wildlifewarrior who told me to do it (On a side note, isnt it Wildlifewarrior who does "Christians Clinic" in PRK?")


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

..:: F1D0 ::.. said:


> I thought as much. For a minute, i thought i was going to get laughed at but i *KNEW *i had heard it before, and come to think of it, i think it was Wildlifewarrior who told me to do it (On a side note, isnt it Wildlifewarrior who does "Christians Clinic" in PRK?")


 
Yes I beleive it is


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## jools (Apr 4, 2009)

Well now, here's all *you* guys trying to kill fruit flys - and *I'm* trying to breed them for my (4) baby lygos. Just parcel some up and send them to me will ya?

And yes, Manuka honey is great for loads of things (the lygos like eating that as well!).


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

jools said:


> Well now, here's all *you* guys trying to kill fruit flys - and *I'm* trying to breed them for my (4) baby lygos. Just parcel some up and send them to me will ya?
> 
> And yes, Manuka honey is great for loads of things (the lygos like eating that as well!).


 
LOL! 
just leave fruit out, it doesnt take alot.

which by the way peeps there is still a few floating around, I expect to wake up in the morning with a few hundred more waiting for me.

but today it seems I am winning the battle


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

I am winning


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## wilko92 (Aug 29, 2011)

Salazare Slytherin said:


> I am winning


 wooo get urself a job exterminating flys! haha


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## Fionab (Mar 28, 2010)

another vote for manuka honey for both rep and human ailments. have been using it for many many years.

I too get the fruit flies in my cresties exo.......... lil blighters!


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