a funny yet gross thing happed... beware diy-ers

[Meredith]

Just as an update, I am STILL struggling with algae in my planted. I am about ready to rip everything out and start over. Anyway, at lights on this morning (I have an external ballast thingy under my tank) I noticed some ants on a newly added diy co2 bottle. Well considering there is sugar water in there I wan't totally surprised to see them. I killed them and saw a few more crawling around. I have some indoor outdoor bug killer so I went and got that and sprayed around in the back of the tank and under the molding thinking the ants are coming in through a crack or something. To do this I had to take everything out from under the tank. As I am putting stuff back I noticed an ant with a little white egg or larva thing. 8O Where did that come from?? And then I notice the vents on my ballast. So I unplug the whole thing, take it outside, open it up, and yes, I have an ant farm in my light ballast. Queens, workers, babies, eggs, the whole works. TOTALLY Gross right?? I had to completely dismantle the whole thing to get them all out. Luckily there are very few parts and I got everything put back together. I guess the lesson here is make sure there in NO sugar left on the outside of the bottle. Funny thing is, there are no ants anywhere else in the house. The stayed right there under my tank. YUCK!

 

[Guest]

Those little opportunistic rascals!

 

[fish_4_all]

What as wasted chance at easy live food.
I am surprised you didn't get attacked by the workers protecting the queen. Thanks for the heads up. I have a lot of this little buggers in my yard and don't want to find them in my ballasts.

 

[SkullJug]

Man that breaks my heart!!!! I built a 1m by 2m ant farm about 2 years ago. It is really nice and would look mad if I could get it setup (The original Idea was to use 2 different soils so I could spell my name across it) But I live in QLD Australia and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a queen. I tried diggin up ant nets for a while then lost interest.

I'd give my left leg for that light ballast!!

 

[lmw80]

Well Meredith I would have also have to agree - EEEEEEEEEEW!!!

 

[GlitcH]

Hey at least you found the source and now ya should be ant free.

But that reminds me of a lesson I learned a when I was first starting out with fish.
I lived in an apartment with an ant problem and I needed to spray ever so often in order to keep them at bay. My landlord was no help at all......he just would shake his head "yep" and lie to me about how he was gonna call an exterminator.

Anyway, I had the fish tank set up for a while before summer when the ants started moving in, I sprayed in back of the tank I didn't think to unplug my air pump.

Every fish I had ended up dyin over the next two days.
It took me the longest time to figure out what had happened.

Oh well............we live..........we learn.

 

[crazyred]

I had to put pet/garden dust in circle around my 10 gallon froggy tank that sits in my box window because it is so dry here the stupid ants come in for water......everywhere. They were getting all over my 10 gallon tank. I haven't seen one sinc I laid that powder down.

That is an ickky sotry story though, EWWWWWW!

 

[Meredith]

Aww, sorry skulljug, if I had only known...
I was a bit worried about the poison use around the tank, but I don't use an air pump and I only put it behind on the carpet. Hopefully the fish will be ok.