Stupid Ants!!!!

Of the four tarantulas I have, I lost two of them because of some stupid ants that got into the small vials. Now I only have two usambara Baboons. From what I know, I lost a costa Rican Tiger rump and a Haitian Brown. I am fairly pissed. Oh well, could have been worse and I could have lost all of my T's. But why the most expensive ones I have?

Does anyone know a good way to keep ants away from the T's? They are very annoying.

-dan

You can keep the vials in another low container that has a small amount of water in it..maybe 1/2" worth of water.

exactly.
Mick

I find using water too troublesome and messy... so I went searching, I had an ant prob recently... but for me keeping the place clean seemed to solved it.

I found some tips here you can try... http://pages.tipking.com/pests/tip_148.shtml

You can try using double-sided (sticky both side) tape around the base of container holding T. Hmm come to think of it.. If you used it at the mouth of the container, maybe it might even be a good tactic to prevent an escape of the Ts.

I had a similar problem where the ants kept getting into my kricket keeper to eat all the cricket food, then eat all the crix. I got tired of buying "ant food" so I did something that I heard from folks who raise feeder roaches... I put vaseline around the outside of the top of the enclosure. I haven't had a prob w/ants since!

This also keeps them out of the T enclosure as one of my avic slings likes to eat 1/2 a crick and keep the rest for later. I got home one day and the ants were all in her house eating the crick. Thankfully they hadn't noticed her. After making absolutely sure she was OK I got a new house ready for her, complete w/vaseline, and moved her in while squashing every ant I could get a fingertip on! And of course once i saw that I put vaseline on my other T houses, too. It's working marvelously...but yeah 2-sided tape would prob'ly work too.

Oh, and if you use vaseline you want to be careful how you handle the T enclosure...it's kind of gross and surprising to get a fingerful of vaseline when you don't expect it and have no use for it.

Thanks for your advices. I'll try the vaseline, the tape, or the water.

-dan

I've found that if you spray a ring of Windex around your T's cage on a flat surface, it will keep ants away. Windex instantly kills ants. I've noticed that ants are intensely avoidant of it. The nice part is the Windex dries and is hardly noticeable - but it seems to have a powerful dissuading effect on ants.

i have heard that you can use borax (i think that's how it's spelled) and place it in your house (near your tarantula tanks), the ants eat the borax, (and take it back to the colony ) then proceed to die., THis is how we kill ants at work (I clean washrooms at a provincial park).

Mori

harwin said:

You can try using double-sided (sticky both side) tape around the base of container holding T. Hmm come to think of it.. If you used it at the mouth of the container, maybe it might even be a good tactic to prevent an escape of the Ts.

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I'd think an escaping T getting caught on double sided tape would at best lose legs, or be hopelessly stuck. I also wouldnt use windex for the reason if it instantly kills ants, then I wouldnt want my T getting it (or its dry residue) on their 'feet' and getting sick/dead during grooming. Then again it could make for ANOTHER classic "Um, why did my T die " thread
T

Again, my favorite method: Buy a fresh chili pepper, preferably an habañero or jalapeño. Cut it open, squeeze the juice in a circle surrounding all of your T enclosures. WASH YOU HANDS, then sit back and watch the little suckers BURN!! Bwahahaha... oh, sorry. Hope I'm not offending any ant lovers!!

MizM said:

Again, my favorite method: Buy a fresh chili pepper, preferably an habañero or jalapeño. Cut it open, squeeze the juice in a circle surrounding all of your T enclosures. WASH YOU HANDS, then sit back and watch the little suckers BURN!! Bwahahaha... oh, sorry. Hope I'm not offending any ant lovers!!

Click to expand...

That would be a hard thing for me to do...there something in my DNA that makes me eat every jalapeno that I see. The borax does work, they take that stuff back to the ant mansion eat it.. drink some water and proceed to explode. It's kind of like when my cuzn ate pop rocks and drank some root beer when we were kids KABLOOM!!!!!