Ants infestation on millipede enclosure

[marionimacaroni]

Help! I added some tree bark into my millipede enclosure but they attracted loads of black ants! Should I be worried about this kind of ants dwelling in the vivarium? How do I keep my vivarium ant-free?

 

[isejohn]

I would definitely remove the millipedes and clean out the ants then get new substrate and make sure it is ant free before putting millipedes back in

 

[Arthroverts]

For starters, take the bark and as many ants as you can find out. You do not want any ants whatsoever in with your millipedes, as they could potentially harm the millipedes. Then, figure out how the ants got in the cage in the first place; are your ventilation holes too large? Did they hitch hike in with the bark? Once you figure that out, block off the entrance the ants are coming in, as well as all other entrances they could possibly use in the future.

Hope this helps,

Arthroverts

 

[davehuth]

UGH, agree with the above, you don't want ants in your millipede enclosures. Ants are cool, but they'll most likely take over, and can do some harm.

The advice above is good. I can tell you I've had ants persistently return to enclosures I've cleaned out because ants occasionally infest the walls of of my house. They especially like invading enclosures where I feed my inverts fruit. In those cases I've set the entire enclosure in a shallow pan of water to form a moat around the perimeter. The ants won't cross the water to climb into the enclosure, which gives me time to deal with eliminating them from the room itself.

Good luck!

 

[marionimacaroni]

I wasn't sure if ants are friends or foes but now I've succeeded to remove the ants as per your suggestions! Thanks for the tips!

 

[Criteria]

An ant infestation is my personal nightmare.

I soak all my logs and branches for 24 hours before adding them, as the first one I picked up for my set-up had a small number of red ants living in it.

Checked the container I'm soaking a new batch of branches in earlier and there were loads of them all dead in the water.