The ultimate roach display has begun

Carnivorous plants need to be kept in peat or sphagnum and given rainwater or distilled water, they can't stand minerals. They also mostly need very bright lights. Sundews and pinguicula love gnats, but only catch the gnats that stray out and bump them. Speaking from experience, they don't have enough catching power to wipe out an infestation, though I do have a pinguicula on a living wall that keeps the very low gnat population from ever increasing. Not good gnat control, but neat plants. 

 
Betta132 said:
Carnivorous plants need to be kept in peat or sphagnum and given rainwater or distilled water, they can't stand minerals. They also mostly need very bright lights. Sundews and pinguicula love gnats, but only catch the gnats that stray out and bump them. Speaking from experience, they don't have enough catching power to wipe out an infestation, though I do have a pinguicula on a living wall that keeps the very low gnat population from ever increasing. Not good gnat control, but neat plants. 
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I have not much exp. with carnivorous plants, but I did remember reading that a Sarracenia can actually become injured and develop brown areas after catching too many insects. Also, fungus gnats are built for high mortality rates, like most insects, and (while I have never had such a problem, due to keeping aridity-tolerant tenebrionids) it seems that large swarms cannot be stopped just by killing adults unless you shoot the whole room with an x-ray gun.

 
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Sarracenia pitchers eventually die if they become clogged with insects, but the plant stays healthy and regrows pitchers, and it gains more energy from the insects than it loses by having a pitcher die. They're made to deal with occasional swarms of insects coming through. 

 
Axolotl said:
I'll give the mosquito dunks a try. Do you add them to the water being used in the enclosures? Or do they leave a bowl of treated water out to catch them? I had good luck with the yellow sticky boards, potato slices (larvae swarm to it then you just throw them out) and just generally drying things out a bit (tricky with the beetle grubs, but I just added a dry top layer). Initially I just let them be, as I figured they were something of a clean up crew, but they gradually got out of hand. Good to know you haven't had trouble with them and roaches, as I suppose I'll always have a few around. 
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I don't know for sure how people were using them, but I was under the impression they just placed the dunks directly in moist substrate, and the bacteria then colonized the substrate. 

 
Hisserdude said:
I don't know for sure how people were using them, but I was under the impression they just placed the dunks directly in moist substrate, and the bacteria then colonized the substrate. 
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I'll do a test of a variety of techniques and report back. Just have to wait for the gnats to bloom again. 

 
There is another product known as "gnatrol" that I use in my greenhouse to keep fungus gnats away. It's basically a purer and cheaper form of the mosquito dunks. It's also fully soluble in water. I've used it on a few roaches species before and it doesn't seem to affect them but it does kill springtails and isopods so I'm sure if there's any leaves:wood in the enclosure that the roaches primarily consume it may cause some issues.

 
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