bug problem

[-okapi-]

I have a small problem. Well the problem IS small but theres about 3 MILLION of them. My house is infested with fruit flies. Some how a few discovered the wonderful world of my iguana's food bowl and started to breed. Every day for like a week i would dump the leftover food from the day before in a garbage can next to my iguana's cage and replace it with fresh food. It seems the eggs in the garbage hatched, grew up, and multiplied. Now every time i go to feed zig theres a swarm of fruit flies that covers her food. even if i dump the old food outside theres still some way that they are multiplying. Any good ideas on how to get rid of these pests? I dont wanna "bomb" the house because i breed beetles and crickets. I really dont like pest strips and have heard reports of them causing problems with reptiles. I hope that soon they just get so inbred that they die out (which ive heard is a problem after a few months of inbreeding for people who try and breed them on purpose).

[Big-D Reptiles]

~~~ I had a similar problem with fruit flies which got into a rabbit cage, before you knew it, they were everywhere !!

Keep all windows OPEN

Keep cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, clean the entire cage, over and over again.

It shouldn't take more than a few days if you do that.

[Bartman]

Leave a glass of wine (edit Red wine) sitting out somewhere. They tend to try and go in and drown. Maybe leave it on the windowsil and use a combination of what big d said :)

[Big-D Reptiles]

^^ that's a good idea too !

~~ never thought of that one :)

[Lrptls]

i believe im having the same problem. i wasnt sure if these were fruit flies or not, there kinda big but still not nearly as big as flies. but bigger than knats, so yeah im not sure. out of reptile, amphibian, insect and mammal cages the only place im seeing them sworm is around ferret litter boxes, today i cleand the litter boxes and the poo (sorry if this is really gross) was full of larvae. im going to start cleaning all 3 litter boxes every single day and hope they die out. i do see them drown in water so ill put more of that out.

[-okapi-]

thanks for the advice! temps here are in the 90's so i dont think i can have the windows open... ill have to try the wine idea though. I never see them dead in the water, but maybe the wine will attract them.

to: Lrptls
lol, that dont gross me out, i have to clean up iguana messes alot. btw, i was wondering where you got your tentacled snakes. They are so amazing, but they are illegal here do to laws against rear fanged snakes :grumps:. Also i was wondering what the "0.0.2" means? I assume it has something to do with gender (like my green iguana 0.1) but im not sure.

[Lrptls]

thanks okapi. tentacled snakes have blown me away sence the first time i saw them on tv. i did some research on them on the internet but that isnt very easy, theres very little information about them. there not rare where they live but arnt imported often and usually dont survive in captivity. the key is water quality, if you get that right then they are very easy to keep. most die of skin infections due to bad water quality. they are suposedly very easy to breed. mine have been alive for quite a while so hopefully they are doing well and hopefully different sexes. 0.0.2 means i have 2 snakes i do not know the sex of. they are very hard to find, i found mine at a reptile show which is pretty rare. sometimes they can be found on king snake. com

[cheech]

i think cognac works better than red wine. and putting it in the bottom of a plate or bowl attracts more than a glass.

[-okapi-]

Thanks, but whats cognac?

lrptls, your lucky! ive never seen tentacled snakes for sale anywhere, even though i cant own any. What do you feed them? I hear goldfish are bad for them because of all the amonia. And i know what you mean about their info being hard to find, most of the info on them i found was in german. I tried to translate it to english with an online translator but it only worked for a few words, so i got fragmented information. theres a book called "terrarium and cage construction and care by R. D. & Patricia Bartlett" that talks a little about keeping tentacles, but thats the only book ive seen that talks about them. Btw, could the flies you have be scuttle flies? (they are twice the size of fruit flies and if they arnt desturbed they run around instead of flying) I once got them from the sand i used to breed crickets, but fruit flies are harder to get rid of. I got rid of my scuttle flies by dumping all the sand and cleaning out my cricket sterilite. The maggots were very tiny and ate all my dead crickets (so it was kinda good to have them, but i think they ate my cricket eggs too)

[Linds]

okapi,
If you could please reduce your signature to the maximum allowance of four vertical lines (this includes spaces and emoticons), it would be appreciated. Thank you.

[-okapi-]

say what? :dumb: Ok, is this better? :o