Flea bombing...

[Krypt]

Well, even though we used advantage and kept my dogs well groomed, they have fleas. In turn, we now have fleas in the house and my wife wants to drop the usual flea grenade (smoke bombs) to deal with the problem.

Does anyone know of any house treatments for fleas that I could use to treat my whole house? I'm very worried about even a micron of that stuff getting in my tank so I was planning to shutdown down my skimmer and powerheads. Then I was going to cover my tank and stand all the way to the floor in plastic, then tape it up tight essentially sealing it before I dropped the bomb. The tank will be sealed off for approx. 4 hours while Raid does it's thing. Will this be alright or am I being overprotective?

[ccCapt]

I would never risk my tank and bomb the house. Ask your vet for Capstar for the dogs. It's a pill the dog takes. I tried Advantix for my dogs, but it didn't work all that well. I use Frontline Plus.
Welcome to the CAPSTAR Homepage - Novartis Animal Health US, Inc.

[melosu58]

I would not do it either. If you do bomb the house make sure the tank is covered good. The way we aerate a tank is surface aggitation. If you have that stuff at the surface it will get in your tank. Be careful.

[mr_X]

you may lose the inverts. a friend of mine shrink wrapped his tank for a couple hours and bombed his house. he had some weird gnat-like things that actually were breeding in his sump. anyway, he left power heads on and bombed it. he lost his shrimp but the corals and fish lived, and didn't seem stressed at all through it.

[Krypt]

Thanks for the replies fellas. I did some research as well and found quite a few stories of people trying the bomb and either it worked fine or it killed everything they had. To air on the side of caution, I think I will skip doing the bomb and try some of the other treatments available.

One treatment I've read about on a few sites seems like a pretty easy one. Treat the dogs and cats with Frontline, then shampoo my carpets with a little bit of palmolive mixed in the shampoo and supposedly it will kill all the fleas in the carpet. Palmolive apparently has some chemicals that are toxic to fleas.

[maxst2]

Get the powder that you put on the floor and stuff then vacuum up and take the animals to the vet. Vet quality meds are way better than what you can get at the store.

[Deenalove]

Get garlic capsuls too, to give the dogs, I know of a thing to put on the carpet, all natural then you vacuum it, I am looking it up now. It is baking soda and salt, here you go for that site Natural Flea Killer for Carpets | eHow.com . That DOES work. I did it when I had a cat.

[redneckgearhead]

Be sure you treat your yard too. Its a constant battle at my house, the neighbors on both sides have dogs that are infested with fleas. I frontline my dog and occasionally have to treat the carpet with a flea spray. i cant remember the name of it.

[glassbird]

Forget the bombs. They are easy (push button, run) but they do not work. People think the "smoke" gets into everything, but it does not. It misses the very areas that fleas hide in...all the cracks and crevices and under the furniture. The bombs do a good job of treating the ceilings directly above the bomb, but you do not have fleas on your ceiling. Get a good flea product from your vet, not the pet store or online. Use it strictly as directed (If the product says not to bathe the animal for 3 days before or after application...DO NOT bathe the animal! There is a reason for that.) Vacuum the heck out of your house, at least every other day, until you see results. And that means every crack between the floorboards, the cracks along your baseboards, all the carpets...slowly and thoroughly. And then either throw the vacuum bag out (after sealing it in a plastic bag and tieing it tightly) or put it in a sealed bag and put it in the freezer until your next vacuuming. (Fleas live very nicely in a vacuum bag, and they will get out.)

After several thorough vacuums, if you feel you must, you can use a spray on product, concentrating on the cracks and crevices and carpets. Open the windows and run fans until it is dry. Cover, seal, tape, your tanks during this process. I would rather not spray, but at least you can control where it goes with a spray. But vacuum first, because dirt will shield the fleas from the spray!

Keep in mind that an active infestation will take time to get under control. The cooler the weather, the longer the lifecycle, the longer it will take to get them all. And do not use anything by Hartz, or Sargeants...total waste of money.

[mfdrookie516]

I had to use a flea bomb (well it took about 6 to do the whole house) back in our old house. Somehow our dog got fleas and we didnt realize it until it was too late. I had very good luck with the bombs, but I guess its one of those 'ymmv' scenarios. I wish I had made a thread when I did it, but it was pretty easy. All I did was get a big roll of thick plastic sheeting and several rolls of duct tape. I also bought a bunch of air line tubing. I sealed the tank with a sheet of plastic and put two tubes out the window. Then I put another sheet of plastic over the tanks. I hooked up an air pump to one of the lines so one pushed air in, the other let air out. I did this on all 5 of the tanks I had at the time. I left the tanks covered overnight while we stayed with somebody else. We also took our dog to the vet that day and they gave her a pill which kills all fleas on her within 24 hours. Then we took her and had her groomed and made sure they got all of them before we brought her back. Havent had a problem (knock on wood) since.

I will say, however, that I really didnt like the idea of the flea bombs around my tanks. If you do go that route, be very very cautious and know the risk you are taking

[mr_X]

a pill that kills fleas? what pill is that?

[mfdrookie516]

to be honest, im not sure what the name is. We called our vet and asked what the best method was to remove them. They suggested we bring our dog down, get that pill, then take her to have her groomed. I wish I could remember. I cant find the receipt either. I did google it and found a pill called CapStar, but I cant remember if that was the name or not...