Big scare

[halfwaynowhere]

Right before going to bed, I decided to check on my slings one last time. Today was feeding day, so I checked on them a few times during the day to see how they were progressing with their meals. Then I noticed Clyde, my A versicolor, laying on the bottom of his jar, covered in ants! I nearly had a heart attack. I thought he was dead, but noticed him moving a leg. I transferred him to an empty vial, and waited as the ants moved off of him and onto the sides of the vial so I could squish them.

I don't know what made them go after him like that, none of the other slings had been touched. I put all the slings inside a critter keeper, with a thick layer of vaseline around it, and its not touching anything, so everyone should be safe now.

Clyde isn't very happy with all the moving around, but he seems fine, otherwise. I feel bad for letting it happen in the first place, but I'm glad I decided to check on them before going to bed. If I had waited until I got up in the morning, it might have been too late. I know how vicious these ants can be. I had put vaseline barriers around everything else, all my other enclosures, and the cat and dog food bowls, I can't believe I forgot to protect my little babies...

 

[EightLeggedFrea]

If ants are a big problem for your Ts you can also put ant traps around their enclosures.

BTW that IS a big cause for alarm.

 

[opticle]

ants were in my wolf spiders enclosure before i got into T's, i thinks its because of the left over food that the ants can smell, i mean did Clyde eat all of its meal? it could have left half of it and the ants smelt it and went for it.

 

[Moltar]

FYI if you find where the ants are entering the room and wipe out their scent trail with listerine they will not be coming in through that spot again. Febreeze also seems to work, probably anything suitably strong and chemically will kill that scent trail but good and dissuade them from returning.

I'm figuring listerine is less likely to be actually toxic to inverts so i'd suggest that.

 

[halfwaynowhere]

they are coming in through my outlet, so I'm being cautious about using any liquids near there... I could wipe the wall around it with listerine (already tried febreze, the ants didn't care). I'll look into getting some ant traps to put near the T's.
Everyone is doing fine this morning... Clyde is one of my best eaters, he usually doesn't leave anything behind... I'm thinking that maybe he had gone down to eat, and the ants were attracted to his food as he was eating it, because they did seem to gather around his mouth area.

 

[Moltar]

Put the traps near the outlet too. They'll hopefully swarm all over it and stop progressing into the room at all. Btw, I think you need to actually wipe where the trail is to yaknow, smear it all around and confuse them.

 

[Rochelle]

you can also hot glue bay leaves around where they are coming in....make sure to overlap them. It works like magic on all ants.....and there's nothing to transfer to your collection.
These are expensive if bought in jars, in the spice section of your grocery store...but they're CHEAP in bulk; if bought at the Spanish or Chinese market.

~BugMomma

 

[Galapoheros]

Glad it's OK, I've lost some stuff to ants . There is an organic "type", or "almost" organic ant killer you can buy that is basically boric acid ...or borax, something like that. It shouldn't hurt your other stuff. I can't remember the brand name, prob a few. Somebody here will remember and has probably already been mentioned. I think "Tabor" that usually goes to the scorp section found a good ant killer that's not a big threat to your animals, not sure if it was him but I think so. You can surely find a lot of info with a search.

 

[reverendsterlin]

depending on the enclosure, if there is no bottom venting and the enclosure weighs enough a pan or cookie sheet with water will keep the ants away.
Rev