will ants harm my geckos?

[littlestickyfoot]

Hi everyone!
I'm new to this site but I adore it already. Thank you all for your wise and helpful advice.
I have a question about pavement ants. They've been in my house for a while, but I rarely saw them. Until it got cold. Now they're everywhere! Including my vivariums for my crested geckos. Interestingly, I've heard they will "farm" aphids and lately I've been seeing them "herding" the fruit flies; which is really cool to watch! I normally share my house peacefully with a minute amount of insects, but I'm concerned for my geckos. If they aren't harmful and won't get out of control, I'm ok with them. But, it looks as though they are now laying eggs in the soil.
I am also just getting started with breeding crickets. I've read they will steal the baby crickets. I've seen several pinheads in my terrariums, so I know the ants are eating well.
Will they get out of control? What are my options for controlling them? How can I keep them out of my breeding setup? Will they attack my geckos? So far, they haven't seemed to notice the ants.
Thanks again!

[Jason]

Ants will be ants , and while some only consume other insects and honeydew,fruit juices, grains of sugar and other sweets substances, some ants will eat meats and may try to take small bites outta your gecko. the damp wood and humidity make a ant really comfortable. and with breeding crickets thay just found a 10 star hotel. IMHO you need to tear down the VIV replace the substrate and boil what you can is saltwater. if not Eventually your tank will be 20% viv and 80% ant farm. grab a subject and take a picture and hopefully somebody can ID the bugger and you can go from there. You can also try the Dry Ice route, flooding the tank with CO2 and choke them out. Take care of the ant problem in your house before rebuilding the viv if you dont this will be a rince and repeat mission.

[darc]

Yeah, like Jason said, I'd evacuate the herp's and start over.

Even if the ants won't bite your gecko, they'll still annoy the living hell out of it. I know this first-hand from when I camped in a very bad place one time... woke up covered with ants. Luckily they weren't fire ants, and didn't bite, but I had them ALL over me and ALL of my gear. I unstaked my tent and carried it up the road to the next campsite, staked it down and saw there were tons of ant lines on the ground there too so I gave up and slept in the car. But, I had so many on me and my sleeping bag that I was still absolutely miserable... little buggers crawling through my arm and leg hair and across my face... gives me the jibbly-jibblies just remembering it (and I'm not one to get the jibbly-jibblies very easily : ).

Anyway, I'm just saying that if that happened to me every night and I couldn't get away from them, I'd shoot myself. So, I'd assume your gecko would feel the same way (you'd have to make him a very small firearm).

-darc

[beckdg]

for co2... yeast... sugar... bottle... hose... water... mix

for a 2 liter... 1/2-1 cup sugar... 1/2-2 tsp yeast... fill half to 2/3 with water... attach hose to top and other end in tank... warmer water works faster... more yeast works faster... you may already have these things around your house... if you have a garden hose that needs replacing... you can cut a piece and jam it on the top of the 2 liter.

there is a great article on the home page about the dry ice method.

make sure to get your pets out of course and ventilate the room well!

[darc]

Originally Posted by beckdg

there is a great article on the home page about the dry ice method.

I haven't read the article (yet) but dry ice sublimates into CO2 directly, so it obviously makes a great source.

This should be obvious (and I expect/hope is covered in the article), but dry ice will put off a much higher volume of sublimated gas than its solid form... so never put it in an airtight container (unless you really want it to explode).

Hence the "dry ice bombs" with a 2 liter coke bottle (please don't do this based on my words.... there's enough kinetic energy there to kill you... twice).

I really hope that's covered in the article (I'll check it out tomorrow, it's about bed time [2am :]) but since I haven't read it yet I figured I'd post a warning... blame the (hopefully) unnecessary warning on my ignorance of not reading the article yet.

As long as you aren't putting it in an airtight container, or sleeping in a room of it where the air could become CO2 saturated, it's generally safe stuff (o yeah, and watch out for frost bite... that stuff is cold : ).
-darc

[Chu'Wuti]

The dry ice method is actually quite easy. Remove your geckos (or any animal you want to save). Gather: dry ice, styrofoam cups, aluminum foil, and tape.

Put chunks of dry ice in several cups and set them in the vive. Cover the top with aluminum foil and tape it all the way around to seal it. The aluminum foil with poof up, but ours did not blow up. Leave vive alone until all dry ice has dissapated--at least several hours. Then remove foil & allow air to circulate through the vive and substrate to return to room temp or normal temp. Then replace animals.

[littlestickyfoot]

Thanks to everyone who replied. We found an eco-friendly product called "orange guard" which seems to work on the ones around the house. Now we're going to find their lair and eradicate them. I hate to kill them, but they've seriously abused their welcome.
We'll tear down the vivs and start over. I have worm castings in my soil, so I don't want to bake it. I'll just throw it into my garden and mix more.
We'll boil the wood pieces in salt water as suggested. Does anyone know how long I should boil them?
The CO2 sounds like an interesting experiment, but I don't know that we'll try it. Sounds like it will take a while. We have 3 vivs and nowhere nice to put the geckos for that length of time.
Thanks again!!

[Jason]

Depending on the size of the pot used or rather amount of water id say 30 min should do it. your only looking to kill off any ants or eggs layed in the wood and other porus objects. sence Saltwater boils hotter then normal by about 4 degrees ( based on a quart of water with 3 teaspoons of salt) 30 min should be plenty. Just be sure to soak the stuff in pure water for a a couple hours then dump out the water and replace it with more fresh water and resoak. your going to want to leach out any remainng salt so it dosent harden during the drying and reliquify during misting and screw up your Viv.

[Evilwezal]

Nuke them with Dry ice, its SO fun. I nuked my vivarium after I seen a few snails in it. I havent had a problem since!

[mrcarabao]

Hey, I have the same problem. I want to try the CO2 thingy, but im wondering if itll harm my plants? And how long imma have to leave my gecko out for?

how long will this process take?