I’ve been dealing with fungus gnats with my calathea. I repot and got some sand to prevent them from laying more eggs and they disappeared. BUT I came home tonight to find these fungus… funguses? Fungi? Growing…. Are they harmful? Should I just pluck em out and move on with my life? First time having this issue.
by PalmwineLover
3 Comments
Yes you can pluck them out, wash your hands and move on.
But if there’s mushrooms growing on your calathea substrate, you have a bigger problem: substrate is staying wet for too long. Also, from the picture it looks like it’s in direct sun? Both if those are bad for a calathea. If the plant is unhappy, try switching to bottom watering and indirect light. Bottom watering may also help with fungus gnats.
u/too_doo is right on. You won’t be able to get rid of fungus gnats if you don’t start by handling soil moisture. Sand on top won’t really help. The larvae are already laid in the soil, and the sand on top will prohibit moisture from evaporating.
Hard to say for sure from just the photo if you’ve got a problem. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of fungi that live in the soil. When environmental conditions are right (right temperature and level of moisture) the fungi in the soil produce mushrooms. Both the soil fungi and the mushrooms they produce are harmless and normally disappear on their own in a week or two. If they persist, you might have a problem. That problem usually is your soil isn’t aerated enough. It stays too wet for too long and is slowly suffocating roots. You can try to manage this through watering practices but that almost always only delays root rot and doesn’t cure it. Or, you can repot in a substrate that is better draining and aerated. Fungus gnats are another sign that your soil may be too dense. And while putting sand on top may keep fungus gnats in check, it doesn’t fix dense soil and prevent root rot.