ant attack

The sugarwater with borax? I got a lot of suggestions I just bought some borax and sugar and from what i've read online the borax-sugar method works well. I've id'd this species of ants as argenitina ants. Invasive pest :/ so I'm going to try that tonight.

~Abyss~ wrote:

The sugarwater with borax? I got a lot of suggestions I just bought some borax and sugar and from what i've read online the borax-sugar method works well. I've id'd this species of ants as argenitina ants. Invasive pest :/ so I'm going to try that tonight.

You could just smash their digestive track with orthoboric acid instead of buying an entire thing of borax. Make a paste with that and honey and they'll freak out, eat a ton and die. Well, unless they're a type of carpenter ant, which seem to live off of boron...

where would a non chemist get this orthoboric acid ?

I had the same problem last month... scooped up the little buggers from the substrate and I lined the perimeter of my tank with RAID ant gel. Ants went straight for the stuff and then disappeared after a few days.

I had to replace all of my substrate. Luckily none of the scorps were bothered much by them.

~Abyss~ wrote:

The sugarwater with borax? I got a lot of suggestions I just bought some borax and sugar and from what i've read online the borax-sugar method works well. I've id'd this species of ants as argenitina ants. Invasive pest :/ so I'm going to try that tonight.

Actually I meant the whole making a moat of some kind placing the tank on pedestals and that in water so they can't get to the actual tank.

I don't have the space for that.

~Abyss~ wrote:

Yes I think it's the substrate attracting them they loved the compact cocofiber for tunnelling and it was moist and hot in there.

To be clear, only the humid enclosures that have moist cocofiber have been infested by ants. Right?

Do you have desert scorpions too, with dry sand or dry sand mixed with dry cocofiber as substrate? If so, do the ants ignore those enclosures and go straight for the humid enclosures?

yes the arid species were not infested.

How do the ants get in your place?
Perhaps worth looking into how they get there, to stop them doing any more damage.

~Abyss~ wrote:

yes the arid species were not infested.

And the dry enclosures are kept side by side with the humid enclosures? The ants could have easily gone for the dry enclosures had they wanted to?

Shakudo wrote:

How do the ants get in your place?
Perhaps worth looking into how they get there, to stop them doing any more damage.

Ants can enter even the most tiny crack. It would not be possible to keep ants from being able to enter a house. If something is drawing the ants in, they will find a way.

As of today the ants are taking the borax sugar mix.

here is a safe solutions

So they came back. :/

Any attacks?

Yup there was casualties. I dont even want to talk about it. These species are impossible to kill off even I scorched the whole 10 block radius. And my current situation doesnt allow the space for a water surrounding enviroment.

Don't tell me a G. ankarana died. Hope you figure out a solution.

Take a few milk caps, fill them with a solution of half boric acid and half water. You can also flavor it with a little bit of sugar. Put a cotton ball in each cap to absorb the solution. Place them around the area where the scorps are (not in the enclosures, of course) in places easy for the ants to get to. It's summer time and the ants may be coming in to get water. They will typically go to the area that is easiest to get it. This may help. It will also work for pest roaches and gnats. Just make sure that if you ever have any escapee feeders that you throw them out. Don't feed them to your scorps. You never know if they got into the poison or not.

Oh crap... I was just reading over the posts from a while ago on this topic. If they're nesting in the cage, the boric acid thing is probably a bad idea. If the scorps try to eat any of the nesting ants they will get poisoned also. Damn, man... that's horrible luck. Sucks when bad things happen to kick [buttocks] people. Seems like you have LOADS of support on here, though, and plenty of people to help you replenish your stock when you get rid of the ants. I'm one of them also. Once my P. trans pops and the slings hop off and do their molting, I'll send you some if you would like. I've also been catching some of the C. vittatus that are local to my area and am starting to get a good colony going. If I get babies anytime soon, the same goes there. If you want them.

Thanks guys lucklily the g.anks are all right from what my wife tells me. I'm at work so I can say for certain what's alive, injured or dead. For sure my premolt subadult G.grandidieri is gone. My C.margs are gone except for my hopefully gravid female. That's all I know so far but my wife knows that the G.ankarans are my pride and joy so she saved those first. I had already done the borax mix and they drank it and disappeared....but it only lasted a little over a month. I think thats I'm just going to have to do that every two weeks just to keep them at bay. I'd kill to have some sugar ants or fireants again. At least they kept themselves and only came in to house for my leftover pb&j's. These ants are ruthless just before I left my house I found 3 potato bugs covered in ants still alive but slowly dying...I actually left the house thinking at least there killing outdoors now, not aware they were already back in my house. I might have also lost another H.judaicus, which if thats the case my last one is going to Sean no use keeping something I can't breed. I'm still holding out hope that my female adult g.grandidieri is gravid so I'll have replacements for those soon. Otherwise I dont know where I'll find another one. And hopefully my female C.margiratus is also female. She's fat but she's been fat for months.

That really sucks. Your wife is really quick thinking. Too bad she couldn't save all of them. Maybe the borax killed most of the colony, but then it reproduced until they were back again. Maybe you should get a Horned lizard. There are some California species and I think you can get them as pets.

It's illegal to caputure these without a license. I've seen a few and don't bother documenting it since they're endangered but my house is probably a horned lizard paradise...except I think they only eat one species of ants.

VERY protected species here in the US. They're actually the state lizard of Texas. You can find some species in captivity, though, if you look hard enough. Bearded dragons like ants, too, btw, but they mostly go for the big red ants. Not sure if they'd eat the Argentinians.

Holy crap! I was just looking at those buggers online. They are ridiculous. I was looking at pics of them swarming on red ants... I would be scared to put anything out there to eat them. Lol. The hunter may become the hunted.

Eddy my man. My female Grosphus Grandidieri just popped. Now I just got her and started keeping her and her hubby right but I could tell she was gravid. She had maybe 14 (small litter from miss keeping I'm sure) ate all but 5. But I have 5 1i hanging onto moms back as of 3 seconds ago still.

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