texastort17
New Member
Hello all.
For reference, I’m in north texas where we haven’t had rain in quite some time. I have a few plants (which I kept in pots so I could take them inside during winter) within my tortoises cage. Long story short, I attempted to keep them alive with a solid soak, the abysmal heat were getting right now took them out anyways, and they had to go. When I lifted them out a fair amount of ants scattered.
Now, we’ve had a few ants in there over the years and I’ve always gone straight to y’all; I followed Tom’s advice in regards to terro bait traps—took the pests out in days. Quickly became my new favorite thing to have on standby. I also make sure that I never leave old food. For whatever reason, I’ve laid them down this go round and they’ve cleared out, but the ants are still there. I’m thinking they could have evaporated due to heat? I’m unsure. I’ve put DE food grade around, OUTSIDE of the enclosure I’ve put the poison more specific to fire ants, and continued to lay down bait traps but nothing seems to work.
The ants are always gone during the day, so it’s been a struggle in early morning or nightfall to attempt to really see them. From what I can tell they range in size, but are all a darker reddish brown with a black tail end. I cannot see any stingers on their ends, even on the large ones. The big ones I’ve seen are bigger than any ants I’ve seen before. All the googling I’ve been doing points to carpenter ants but I know fire ants are always an option here too.
I just want to keep my girl safe, so any advice would be so appreciated. Hope you’re staying cool out there.
For reference, I’m in north texas where we haven’t had rain in quite some time. I have a few plants (which I kept in pots so I could take them inside during winter) within my tortoises cage. Long story short, I attempted to keep them alive with a solid soak, the abysmal heat were getting right now took them out anyways, and they had to go. When I lifted them out a fair amount of ants scattered.
Now, we’ve had a few ants in there over the years and I’ve always gone straight to y’all; I followed Tom’s advice in regards to terro bait traps—took the pests out in days. Quickly became my new favorite thing to have on standby. I also make sure that I never leave old food. For whatever reason, I’ve laid them down this go round and they’ve cleared out, but the ants are still there. I’m thinking they could have evaporated due to heat? I’m unsure. I’ve put DE food grade around, OUTSIDE of the enclosure I’ve put the poison more specific to fire ants, and continued to lay down bait traps but nothing seems to work.
The ants are always gone during the day, so it’s been a struggle in early morning or nightfall to attempt to really see them. From what I can tell they range in size, but are all a darker reddish brown with a black tail end. I cannot see any stingers on their ends, even on the large ones. The big ones I’ve seen are bigger than any ants I’ve seen before. All the googling I’ve been doing points to carpenter ants but I know fire ants are always an option here too.
I just want to keep my girl safe, so any advice would be so appreciated. Hope you’re staying cool out there.