Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One thing I've noticed is that there's always some sugar ants in Fuego's tank, usually around his food bowl, in high numbers.

They dont appear to bother him but I'm still concerned. I boil and bake all rocks, and bake all logs before they go in the tank, but living in south florida I cant seem to get rid of them. The only thing I can think of is to bake everything again, including the substrate, then run a ring of vaseline or something similar around the inside lip of the tank frame, out of Fuego's reach.

We're relcutant to spray the house with anything too potent because my roomate has 3 ball pythons, 3 honduran milks, 1 king snake and several hermit crabs, and we do like to let everybody out (not at the same time I hasten to add) to exercise.

Any other suggestions from those who have seen this problem before? Beardie Dragon, you're another Miami local, do you have this problem?

Thanks in advance for your help,
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Ross

1.0 Bearded Dragon (Fuego)
2.1 Roommates (require more cleaning up after than the dragon)

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them too. I'm in Oregon and we've got small sugar ants too. They manage to get into our tanks too and dine on the beardies salads. There has to be an easy way to get them to go away without harming our reptiles. I've heard that they don't like a certain spice. I think it's ginger or cinnamon. You get it in a powdered form and line the entire room with it or something like that. I've heard that before a long time ago but I don't know if it really works or not.

Veronica
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Beautiful Dragons

I heard once that grits work, I don't know if it's true or not, we don't have them up here but it may be worth a shot.

I think everyone is talking about the infamous Argentine ants that stalk all of our homes - right now they are on the move in our house because of the recent rains.

I've heard a hundred different stories about what works to get rid of them, and asked my friend the ant biologist, and I don't know anything that works short of poison (spray), bleach or something similar, or a mechanical barrier, like vaseline, as you said, or water.

Cinnammon, grits (?!), baking soda, none of those work, and if someone knows something that does, I'd love to hear it, too. What I do is track down the source of where they are coming from (corner of the wall, etc.) and put a little bleach in that spot. Of course, then they move their exit/entrance hole, but at least you can slowly stop them from coming in and perhaps plug up some of the holes.

It is important to clean where they have been, thoroughly, with alcohol or a really strong soap, because otherwise new ants will pick up the chemical scent trail the old ones left, and they will keep finding your beardie's cage, food. (They'll often find it again anyway, but why make it easy for them.) Can you move his cage now and then, discourage the ants until they give up for a while?

Short of that, I'm thinking of getting an anteater. We had one in Venezuela, they ARE awfully cute...of course, it was wild there, and came and went as it pleased, which I don't think is allowed in Southern Cal...

Renee

What you are dealing with is simply pavement ants(sugar ants) call them what you want. They are very easy to deal with and get rid of. You have to use a bait (gel form or even those little posion disks that you can buy at walmart will work). However if you use a spray, bleach you will cause yourself more problems. These may make the colony divide. Simply put kill the queen get rid of the colony. The only way is using a pesticide bait. DON'T put the bait in the cage find the area which these guys are coming from. Your local Terminix professional.

for grits or cream of wheat to work you have to have a dry spell for about a week or more. you pour out the grits/cream of wheat around their hill, this is usually done outside, and let them eat it for 2-3 days. this gives it time for the grains to get back to the queen. then you flood the entire area with water...so much that the ants have to drink some (reason this is usually done outside, like in flower beds and around the house). the theory is that when the ants and queen ant drinks the water the grains in their stomachs will soak it up and eventually blow up the ant. this is the same reason that rice is no longer thrown at weddings, does the same thing to birds who eat the rice.
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Jamie

The thing about the grits and the rice and birds, both a myth.

Black knight from aerosol (available from pro-exotics)

It will kill any bug that comes in contact with it BUT is safe enough to spray directly on snakes and BDs. It was used to delouse immigrants coming into the US originally.

It will kill crix too so be careful. if BDs eat crix exposed to black knight it would probably not be good.

We had a very bad Fire ant problem with ants coming in and crawling up to eat the fruit and turkey in the skink, Frill and tegu cages. Then they started going after BD cages. They also went after outdoor tegu cages.

My solution: Spray black knight around every opening to the outside, doors and windows. Spray on the floor around cages creating a barrier they must cross. If the cage is on a base or stand, spray that too. With snakes (they don’t eat bugs) you can spray in the cage and on the animal. It will last for a month or more after you spray. Cutting off the food source gets them to go elsewhere.

Remove all bugs prior to spraying for 24hrs. DO NOT FEED ANYTHING THAT FALLS ON THE FLOOR AFTER SPRAYING!!!
Any escapee crix, worms, roaches... should be discarded.
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

Black Knight has no residual so it will kill the ants that it contacts but will not kill the colony. Still have the ant problem at a later date.

>>Black Knight has no residual so it will kill the ants that it contacts but will not kill the colony. Still have the ant problem at a later date.

yes thats exactly right. I had truely nolen try to get rid of them with boric acid and ant honey bait traps for 3 months to no avail. after spraying black knight once a week for a month and then once a month 2 months following I have yet to see an ant over a year later. They cant get food back out through the barrier so they learn that they need to look elsewhere and they do. They bother your neighbors but leave you alone. at least thats what worked for me.

BTW I found a couple of ant hills and sprayed them down good too (and surrounding area). they seem to have died off as nothing could come or go through the barrier.
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

It's not a barrier if it has no residual. I'd put money on it all you did was displace the ants. A pesticide without a risidual basically means that as soon as it come in contact with a surface it has no affects after that. We use these pesticides in places like restaurants so that they don't harm people if they get in food or whatever. Also used in pet stores. As far as killing a colony of ants you can't use this kind of pesticide because it won't have lasting effects, ants will just find another way out, ant colonys don't have only 1 way out. Sorry but your method of ant control will not work.