i noticed a couple of gnat type bugs

in my emp enclosure.what shoud i do? do a full cleaning of replacing substrate and rinsing the f.bottoms gravel or are they harmless?

They might be mites. Can you post a pic?

I don't have any mites (yet?), but I do have some mold growing on the top of my terra cotta hides.
I understand that isopods (aka wood lice, pill bugs, sow bugs) can help with both problems. I plan
to turn over some stepping stones in the park across the street tomorrow morning and see if I can't
collect some. I'm not worried so much about the mold, but I'd like to start cultivating a "clean" colony
of isopods to add to my emperor tank as preventive maintenance.

i doubt they are mites because they fly. mites dont fly do they?

no,they dont stay still enough to catch a pic,let alone trying to kill em.

I would say its basically harmless to the scorps.. but plain irritation to us (keepers) at the sight of them. Do they look similar to fruit flies?

By allowing more ventilation and clear of any dead prey parts might help. If these "flying bugs" has already penetrated the substrate and planted their eggs which will later emerges as maggot-like worms.. depending on the severity, i might change the whole substrate.. but that is just my preference..

Try to allow more top ventilation and clear of dead prey parts(if any) first as your first step.. and see if condition improves..

Put house spiders in lol. And take em out when they make webs. Surely the flying things will get stuck in the web.

i dont know what fruit flies look like.i googled em and the pics and vids are too defined and up close for me to judge that. they definitely look like the bugs that go after out house plants inside though.

ill do more ventilation and ive heard of using carnivorous plants to remedy that as well. i dont see any leftovers outside their burrows and i usually remove what i find when i see em. ive only had this substrate in here for about a month,basicly when i set up there false bottom a week after i joined this site.

thanks for the input fellas

house spiders hahahaha

Lol

ok upon close examination in daylight i can see tiny white dots moving slowly on the top of the substrate i never seen before. the larvae of said flying bug or mites?
i cant get a good pic cause they are too tiny and i live in az.

How much tiny White things? Like 1000s?

id say in between hundreds and thousands..some are bigger than others.

also i see some about a half inch deep through the glass in the sides of the substrate.

I'd replace my substrate if I seen loads of white things.

yeah i thought so.ill do that first thing friday(payday).

so about these pill bugs as preventitive measures.would i have to breed em or just catch em in my backyard and drop em in my emp viv? they only eat the leftovers to prevent mites,correct?they will not eat the gnat larvae?
my emps would probably more than likely eat their housekeepers as well?

its too bad they didnt infiltrate my c.sculpts viv as the babies would have an abundant food source.

If you catch them you should breed them for a few generations just on the off chance that they have some sort of parasite, or carry some chemical buildup in them from fertilizer or pesticides. A few generations down the road they won't have any thing harmful in them.

Your emp might eat them, but probably won't. They are sort of small and hard to catch. Woodlice eat mold and fungus. I doubt they would eat ant larva.

hmmm how often do you ladies and gents change your high humidity species vivs substrate?

When the summer moon is waning and the call of the wild crack hobo fills the air...

Seriously though, I rarely do it. I don't like keeping trops though.

im starting to feel the way you do on that.

Get some desert scorps man. They are the bees knees.

yeah i think im going to get native species from now on,i do live in the desert.i will always love my emps though.

with that insect screen i got from home depants i made took precautions with my emp viv as well.i added that screen on the lid of their viv as well after i changed the substrate.
nothing gets in and nothing gets out!!!!
oh i also set the viv up way differently this time.much more creative this time.im kinda proud of it,except i need some frog moss to add to the look,sphnagnum moss doesnt look cool in their viv.