DKS Risk

[WolfSpider]

Damn.......only in South and Central Florida!!! Got a question for all of the experts on the forum:

My enclosures, all of them, and my spider room, are infested with Ghost ants. Ghost ants are tiny--hard to see. They are tropical (Ennie, Shampain, LC72UK, you are off the hook). Anyway, they sneak in through tiny holes in the house. They eat protein foods--especially bonus material, tarantula poop, etc. By themselves, they are harmless, but they reproduce from the Queen or Queens by--get this--budding!!! In my T. Ockerti enclosure, I gave up after I counted 40 of them.

So.....they can be controlled with bait. It is recommended by the exterminator that poisonous bait laced with proteins/grease and with sugar be placed at strategic points in the tarantula room. Apparently this is successful...eventually. The exterminators recommend Advion ant bait gel (to be laid on the floor) and Adviot bait containers.

Here is my question: Will the bait (not a spray, and probably not likely to propagate in the enclosure) put my T's at risk of DKS??

Thanks for your opinion in advance.

 

[WolfSpider]

OOPs, the title should be DKS Risk.
I'm an idiot.

 

[Enn49]

OOPs, the title should be DKS Risk.
I'm an idiot.

I've put it right for you.

 

[Tgotty90]

Man this gives me something else to worry about lol I had a bad out break early this spring, lost almost all of my adult Ts to dks. Mine came from bad crickets, but I went weeks trying to determine what it was that caused it. I did manage to save my a.seemanni, but I still lost 4 beautiful adult specimens to these dreadful symptoms and im still paranoid about it.

 

[Enn49]

The only suggestion I could make would be to use those sticky fly papers or ant traps then there is virtually no risk of your Ts coming into contact with them or the ants.

 

[WolfSpider]

Thanks Ennie for everything. Do you think that the traps/bait, even though it doesn't come into contact with the T's would LIKELY cause problems through passive diffusion in the air? (No sprays, just bait for the ants to take to the queen)

 

[Enn49]

Thanks Ennie for everything. Do you think that the traps/bait, even though it doesn't come into contact with the T's would LIKELY cause problems through passive diffusion in the air? (No sprays, just bait for the ants to take to the queen)

The fly papers or ant traps just attract the bugs with a scent and they stick to it, nothing for them to take away. The danger with bait is they could carry that away and affect your Ts.
The only other thing I can suggest is if you can remove all the Ts from that room then spray the room sealing the doorway so the ants can't get out, Duct Tape would do the trick. You'd have to ventilate the room thoroughly before putting the Ts back in.

 

[WolfSpider]

Great idea Ennie! I guess I could mechanically crush all the ants in each enclosure after I move them out of the room. It would work if there is not a queen in one of the enclosures.

 

[IamKrush]

Ive delt with tiny ants infesting my dubias. I lost alot of them due to it. I just try to be on top of maitence and also used cayanne pepper powder around they area they seem to mainly be coming into. It seems to have helped for the most part. Still see some of those little bastards here and there.