Using lemon juice in the enclosure

BobbyJ

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I'm going to spray my enclosure with water mixed with lemon juice because I heard it will kill many of the gnats . Is this okay for the tortoise to ingest a little bit , I'm not going to use it every day just once or twice to kill the flies .. Thanks
 

Yvonne G

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I'm not sure, but it may encourage ants.
 

Cowboy_Ken

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I couldn't answer you in regard to the tortoise eating the peel. I think the overall environment wouldn't be the best though. I for one wouldn't do it. Try this experiment. Catch an insect in a jar. Place a piece of citrus peeling in the same jar. Observe how quickly the insect dies. I wouldn't risk it with one of mine.
 

N2TORTS

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get rid of the uneaten "waste" food after each feeding and this will reduce your fly infestation greatly. If still a problem for you ( they don't harm your tortoise) a fast clean with a wet-dry vac. will suck up the flying adults no problem. There are basically two types of flies: trash flies and small fruit flies. You can trap both with simple, cheap homemade devices. For trash flies, cut a 2-liter soda bottle in half and put some bait — raw meat soaked in stale beer works, so does an old banana peel — in the bottom, then invert the top half of the bottle and put it neck down in the bottom half. For fruit flies, pour a little cider vinegar mixed with a drop of dish soap in the bottom of a jar. Cover the jar with plastic wrap with a few holes poked in the top. With both traps, flies fly in but they don’t fly out.

Lemon and Lime fruits contain a substance called psoralens, which when combined with the acidity in lemons and limes, can make ingestion dangerous for dogs and cats ...not Redfoots.

Abstract
A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the toxicity of lemon peel extracts
Journal of Chemical Ecology
Volume 30, Issue 2 , pp 323-333

Ken ... were you one of those kids who ran around with a "kill jar"? :p well me too ....but I used Ether myself and put them to sleep for a very long...long time..
 

teresaf

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get rid of the uneaten "waste" food after each feeding and this will reduce your fly infestation greatly. If still a problem for you ( they don't harm your tortoise) a fast clean with a wet-dry vac. will suck up the flying adults no problem. There are basically two types of flies: trash flies and small fruit flies. You can trap both with simple, cheap homemade devices. For trash flies, cut a 2-liter soda bottle in half and put some bait — raw meat soaked in stale beer works, so does an old banana peel — in the bottom, then invert the top half of the bottle and put it neck down in the bottom half. For fruit flies, pour a little cider vinegar mixed with a drop of dish soap in the bottom of a jar. Cover the jar with plastic wrap with a few holes poked in the top. With both traps, flies fly in but they don’t fly out.

Lemon and Lime fruits contain a substance called psoralens, which when combined with the acidity in lemons and limes, can make ingestion dangerous for dogs and cats ...not Redfoots.

Abstract
A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the toxicity of lemon peel extracts
Journal of Chemical Ecology
Volume 30, Issue 2 , pp 323-333

Ken ... were you one of those kids who ran around with a "kill jar"? :p well me too ....but I used Ether myself and put them to sleep for a very long...long time..
creepy...o_O;)
 

teresaf

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No concerns about the acidic water?
Are you using moss? I never had gnats when I used Orchid bark and potting soil.
Moss, yes.
I'm not using moss but i have gnats too. The water dish gets gross faster than i can clean it. I am litterally filling the bird bath top with the hose when my leopard decides it's time to soak/poo. I like the vacumme idea. the bottle of vinigar though. I dont know where i would put it. I have one of those apple shaped traps from wallmart. We'll see how that goes. I may need more than one to cover the whole table
 

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