bluetounge tank has ants 🐜

[spideyygirl]

hey guys! my bones tank i’ve noticed is crawling with ants. i’ve tried googling to see if this is good or bad, it told me to use cinnamon ground for it?

what can happen with this & how do i get rid of them?

thankyou
photo for cuteness.

 

[Tentacle Toast]

Ants are bad news. Just get rid of the substrate, wash everything, & start over. It'll be faster & less cumbersome than cycling through the remedies out there. Make sure you're on top of leftover foodstuffs removal afterwards, & your problem will be solved. Don't bother with cinnamon.

 

[spideyygirl]

what do the ants end up doing to them? okay thankyou so much i will do that thankyou. i don’t leave food in there as he mostly eats mealworms thankyou so much

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

what do the ants end up doing to them? okay thankyou so much i will do that thankyou. i don’t leave food in there as he mostly eats mealworms thankyou so much

try and find out what ants are coming for either feeders or something???

 

[The Snark]

what do the ants end up doing to them?

The ants are just the organic material clean up crew. However, nearly all ants pack formic acid. Any perceived weakness in an animal and they will move in to dissolve it. Some species of ants have both clean up and wrecking crews. Best move, as @Tentacle Toast said, is remove the food source attracting them.

 

[spideyygirl]

The ants are just the organic material clean up crew. However, nearly all ants pack formic acid. Any perceived weakness in an animal and they will move in to dissolve it. Some species of ants have both clean up and wrecking crews. Best move, as @Tentacle Toast said, is remove the food source attracting them.

oh wow i never knew that about ants that’s crazy!
i don’t leave food in their as i feed him mealworms etc & take out anything. could it also be attracting ants bevauae of his poo?

 

[The Snark]

could it also be attracting ants bevauae of his poo?

Yes. Certain ant species will go after poop. Not much you can do about it if they are present. Just barriers.

 

[SpookySpooder]

Depending on the species and colony size, given enough time they might send the whole swarm to dismember your pet.

It's uncommon, but it's happened before.

Best to remove all organic material that could be attracting them, find their point of entry and seal it off, or follow them back to their nest and eradicate it.

I have a vendetta with ants so I don't give them an inch. I murder generations of them in their homes. A bit harsh, but they're pests.

 

[kingshockey]

enough ants decide to swarm your tank and your lizard is dead with no where to get away from them along with cleaning out the tank you need to locate where they are getting into your house from then seal that access point off before they get all over your house. i agree with above post i hate em too long as they stay outside my home its fine they come inside they die to the last one i can find

 

[spideyygirl]

Depending on the species and colony size, given enough time they might send the whole swarm to dismember your pet.

It's uncommon, but it's happened before.

Best to remove all organic material that could be attracting them, find their point of entry and seal it off, or follow them back to their nest and eradicate it.

I have a vendetta with ants so I don't give them an inch. I murder generations of them in their homes. A bit harsh, but they're pests.

holy crap okay i’ll get rid of them asap. what other ways besides cleaning the tank fully can i do to prevent it. i’ll clean it tomorrow but incase they come back is their a simpler way?

 

[kingshockey]

holy crap okay i’ll get rid of them asap. what other ways besides cleaning the tank fully can i do to prevent it. i’ll clean it tomorrow but incase they come back is their a simpler way?

you need to track where they are coming from follow the trail back until you find where they are coming inside at then plug it up with vaseline or caulking

 

[SpookySpooder]

holy crap okay i’ll get rid of them asap. what other ways besides cleaning the tank fully can i do to prevent it. i’ll clean it tomorrow but incase they come back is their a simpler way?

You can use the advice posted above, follow them back to their nest and eradicate them or find where they are coming into your house and seal it off.

A quick fix--mix up a small container of lemon juice or vinegar and dilute it 50/50 with water, take a cloth or rag, soak it in the solution, and wipe down the surfaces around your enclosure and the areas around it.

This should form a non toxic barrier that discourages them from returning for a couple days while you figure out something else.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Help! ANTS!!!!

Terro and diatomaceous earth @MrsHaas

arachnoboards.com

I Delt with ants

Considering orange headed roaches ??

Not many photos on my phone rn. But in about a week or so I'll have access to my hard drive. Your location works too, whether you leave it outside the bin or inside the bin doesn't matter--as long as you fix it to one point at the hottest part of the mat, which is usually the middle. The...

arachnoboards.com

 

[The Snark]

@spideyygirl Since you are in Oz, you know, or can easily find out about the predator ants, of which you have several species. The poster child being green ants which are roughly equivalant to the African soldier (Army) ants.
So far, here in S.E. Asia, I have found only one deterrent, double sided tape. But a determined invasion will bridge the tape with the bodies of the trapped victims. Otherwise, it's whatever works. You can't remove the scent trails they follow since they will just make new ones. The job of the random roaming and commonly seen here and there ants. They find food, they make a scent trail back to the nest.

 

[viper69]

hey guys! my bones tank i’ve noticed is crawling with ants. i’ve tried googling to see if this is good or bad, it told me to use cinnamon ground for it?

what can happen with this & how do i get rid of them?

thankyou
photo for cuteness.

Well it’s not good

Any natural repellents are useless ultimately.

You need to remove their scent trails and learn why they are coming in!

 

[Smotzer]

Oooouch yeah you are definitely going to want to replace all the substrate and find where they are coming in from and remove all the sent trails and try and also stop up how they’re entering your house!! Ants can be a big problem if they’re not dealt with promptly!

 

[The Snark]

Just to mention, we have had ranging ants here - not the hoards or trails of them - for a couple of months now, ranging mostly around the sink and I'm not sure why. It's the rainy season so they aren't after water so my best guess is some food source detected from what is going down the drains. Hardly a scientific conclusion. I ran out of BKC so I can't eradicate the odors from the drains.
Just another of their quirks seeking some food source not readily available elsewhere at this time of the year? Very hard to tell since their ranging often depends on the size of their nests - which in our case is gigantic, a quarter acre on both sides of the road, and seasonal fluctuations of food sources. Changes in the detritus and so on. And my sticky traps along the phone and power wires have cut off the nests across the road.

But the general rule is if they haven't formed a trail, a source of something found and being mined, they are just randomly out seeking something.

 

[Kada]

In case it wasnt mentioned. For getting.rid of the colonies (outside your tanks) google boric acid. make 2 types of traps, 1 sugar based and 1 protein based. place the bait in bottle caps or something, and put directly in their trails. the colony will be gone at the source within a week, no nasty chemicals. I wouldnt put it into any enclosure, regardless of it being.relatively safe for large animals. but probably not ideal for smaller anims still.

It comes in the form of what looks like table salt or white sugar. dissolve it and mix into the bait. takes 5 mins and is safe for you and.your house and kills the colony from within. rather than just spraying workers which is pointlessly unhealthy.

 

[The Snark]

boric acid. make 2 types of traps, 1 sugar based and 1 protein based.

Worth a shot. But, as @HooahArmy has figured out by now, this chem lab drop out has tried it. And another 30 or 40 chemicals, some a heck of a lot nastier and more toxic. One major problem with the packs the stuff back to the nest and gets the ants depressed/repressed, is there isn't one nest. In our case here, think several dozen chambers interconnected covering a hundred square feet or more underground. A few million ants deterred or killed off is a very minor inconvenience.
While the ant colony in the video is exceptional, all established ant colonies have at least several dozen chambers. This is why any and all poisons or deterrents are basically useless. Even saturating the ground with deadly gasses (phosgene being one of those tested) injected under high pressure failed to have any significant effect on the overall colonies.
@HooahArmy Got any bright ideas, barring a quarter ton of thermite?

 

[HooahArmy]

HooahArmy: 85% kick-ass and 15% crippling self-doubt...

Alright, ladies and gents, intro of the day apart, let's get to the bottom of solving an ant problem. I'm going to be posting in details for everyone who may have ant problems too, so feel free to read ahead or skip sections containing actions you may have already done.
We get ants at my family's homes and army buildings like 3rd graders get lice, and it isn't always reasonable to use insecticide chemicals due to critters being around us, sensitive individuals, or others. So, as a result, my house and I like to take care of ants like a fascist dictator goes at his or her opposition: Isolate, Terrorize, Annihilate.

Isolate: My family keeps about 20 different types of animals along with feeders in our homes, so we need to isolate the ant problem and bar the trouble from getting worse.
1. Secure your borders: Find out the entry point of the ants and seal it off with wet tissues or tape. These critter and people-friendly options form physical barriers that don't need chemicals to work. Doing this first will help you prevent additional ants from coming in while you are dealing with the current invaders!
2. Track your terrorists: Now that your points of entry are closed, focus on tracking the individuals who have already made it to your home. They will most likely have congregated around your food source, or in the case of the OP, the Blue Tongue's enclosure. If it's a food item, toss it. Once you pinpointed the location, follow the ant trails and ensure that there are no secondary locations! Ants are opportunistic and will sometimes invade other enclosures or food sources! Don't get rid of one problem only to find there is another after you've cleaned up later!

Terrorize: You want to now make the area of invasion as inhospitable as possible.
1. Bring out the 'razor wire': Enclosures and pantries are often where we get ants the most. To form an enduring physical barrier, we rub a trail of petroleum jelly with a cotton swab in a perimeter around the enclosure (don't get any near your homie!) or around the shelf the ants are trying to get to. To keep ants from crawling up a table, a ring of barrier can also be used to circle each table leg. This stuff can also be easily wiped off. If you don't have petroleum jelly, a line of liquid soap also will work as long as it doesn't dry out. Wear gloves too and remain vigilant to ensure that applications do not get near or get transferred onto your pals.

Annihilate: Ants are easy to kill without using chemicals!
1. Drop the 'gas canisters': There are many folks who say that vinegar and water or soap and water kills ants. I've tried both and just plain water and found that its the water on its own that can kill the ants just fine. Ants, like many insects, breathe through pores on their bodies, hence by covering them with a light spritz of water, they can be easily drowned. Grab a spray bottle and start misting locations with ants with water. Use distilled or other form of safe water if you are going to spray around your critters. The water coming out will not be in a volume that will harm your pals, and most pets don't mind being lightly misted. If you have a pal that is adverse to water, feel free to remove him or her as you treat the enclosure, then return them after cleanup. Substrate that's misted may need time to dry before returning an arid-ecosystem pal, or if you feel as if an ant problem has fully taken over the substrate, you may change it out or remove it to be rinsed.
2. Stick it to em!: If you have ants running all over the place in a large enclosure's walls, or have a gang scurrying about your house, let packing tape be your next option to spot-catch. Wrap a length of tape around your fingers and use your new sticky pad to stick up ants when you find them. Tape is best when you are working on walls, wooden surfaces, or other places you may not want to get wet.
3. Destroy the evidence: After you are certain that your ant problem is taken care of or mostly eradicated, cleanup is easy with water or a terrarium-safe cleanser. If you choose soapy water, be sure to remove your pal and other absorbent items in the enclosure and be sure to rinse well and let dry before returning your pal. Keep vigilant upon completion to nail any remining invaders and to ensure that others are not returning.

Weapons of mass destruction required: Spray bottle, plain or filtered water, soap or petroleum jelly, and tape.
Cost of controlling invasion: About $5 to $10 or less.



Bonus: Why do some people use cinnamon, flour, or baby powder?
I've heard of this technique quite often, and the evidence behind its working is that ants struggle to walk over fine powders. Although the powder itself doesn't kill the ants, rather than keep them from proceeding, it's a heck of a cleanup and can cause respiratory, fungal, or intestinal issues for pets if inhaled or ingested. Cinnamon is an irritant (think Cinnamon Challenge) and can be harsh on mucous membranes or obstruct respiration when inhaled. Plus, the stuff is priced like powdered silver when bought in bulk...