Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding ants in feeder

Anyone have experience with fire ants getting in their fish feeder? Any ideas how to keep them out?

Buzzman

I am a Certified Pesticide Operator in Florida. I also do some Aquatic Weed Control. I am here to learn more about Pond management.

Fire Ants are very easy to control if you know how. First you must understand the how various pesticide work and effect collateral damage to you pond and fish. The popular Pyrethroid pesticides will kill your fish if the run off gets into your pond. Therefore you must use liquid Boric acid Baits like Terro that you can buy in the Super Market. Bait attract the Fire Ants and they take the Boric acid back to the nest were it finally control the total population. This can take up to 6 weeks but you should start seeing a decline in 2 to 3 weeks. The big trick with Terro liquid Ants baits is to water it down at least 2 water to 1 Terro. Full strength Terro works too fast and doesn't return to the main colony like the watered down solution.

One trick that might help you get past the 6 weeks control period is to Wipe down or trigger spray all around the Feeder with a Strong Cleaning solution of your choice. Lysol works good. The Cleaning solutions have a smell that will repell the Fire Ants for a few days. Of course place the baits out side the circle of Lysol where the Ants can get it.

My advice is to also keep Ant Bait near your feeder as a preventative. Liquid Baits seem to work the best and a little quicker than Solid Baits since only Ant Larvae can digest solids. Place these Bait station where they can not be rained on and change them bi-monthly.

Of course if you don't want to wait the 4 to 6 weeks baits take to work, Hire a Professional. We have ways of getting results much quicker.

Good Luck I hope this helps

I don't know much about fire ants. But, I have hung my feeder on a hook welded to a T-Post. The t-post is in the pond, near the end of my dock -- where I can reach the hook from my dock. It seems to keep critters out of the feeder.

ADVION Fire Ant Bait. 1.5 lbs per acre, broadcast. Or, use it for mound-treatments. 1-3 days later, any active mounds will be dead.
Best of all, the active-ingredient is relatively non-toxic until after it passes through the ant-larvae gut; at which point it becomes very lethal to the colony after it is underground.
Available in 2# shaker-jugs and 12# bags. But, once either container is opened, make sure to keep it well-sealed to prevent the bait from losing its freshness (attractiveness). In fact, try not to keep it stored too long after opening the container. Consider it like a bag of potato chips. Once opened, the clock begins ticking for when it becomes stale.

I've been told to take an ear tag used on cattle to repel insects and place it in the bottom of your feeder- not in the hopper where it contacts the feed, but under the hopper e.g. under the blower assembly. Haven't tried it but guess it depends on the type of tag and what the active ingredient is.

Kelly

I always try and recommend products to homeowner that they can readily purchase locally. ADVION Fire Ant Bait works great but isn't always available to home owners or sold in retail stores. I am afraid I would have to recommend your competitor "Lesco John Deere" as a more accessible locations for the average persons. Unlike Helena they are the 7-11 of pesticide suppliers with a store in every town and a higher price for that service. Helena is the Sam Club with volume warehouse pricing. I am 50 miles away from the Immokee store but I get delivery, great service and prices from Helena because I am in the Business. In fact Helena Chemical here in Florida markets heavy to Agriculture and not Horticulture. However they are also the preferred Aquatic chemical supplier in Florida.

BTW from personal experience. I find Advion has a quick knock down but not the lasting effects I get from Extinguish Plus or Amdro which works much slower.

Simpler solution is to put the feeder legs in bowls of thick oil.

The oil idea may carry some weight. I had thought I might try coating the legs with thick grease, but wasn't sure if that would work. Thanks everyone for the input.

Both will work. I coat my wire bird feeder hangar with wheel bearing grease. If you use the oil in the bowls, rain, etc will get it onto the ground around the feeder.

Can't he just put the legs in a bowl of water? Won't that deter the ants? (Yeah, I realize the legs will rust.....)

Texas fire ants aren't deterred by water. I've seen them floating in balls after good rains(seldom occurrence here). I also got stung several years ago by wading in a pond.

Well, I'll be. Learn something every day, today was earlier than most!

Yep. I have seen BG try and eat those ant balls Dave described and get stung to death (mouth , head , insides).

Actually, colony-mound flooding prompts this involuntary behaviour. Under such extremes, workers will collect and encircle the queen within a floating ball of ant-bodies - thus insuring the colony's survival once dry ground is encountered (Noah-style).
To my knowledge, fire ants will not willingly attempt to traverse open water. However, I frequently encounter fire ants actively foraging on floating vegetation that completely covers surface-water. This opportunistic habit may account for some of the limited successes where "salvinia weevils" were deployed to control invasive populations of giant salvinia (where fire ant predation on the weevil adults and larvae may have limited the effectiveness of this biological control-measure).

As for placing the feeder's legs in pails of water: I doubt if fire ants would willingly attempt a cross-water passage. But, to insure against such attempts, mixing some surfactant or dishwashing soap should render the water's surface-tension impassable - and MIGHT also incapacitate the respiration-process of mosquito larvae within the pail of water.
Personally, I pull no punches when dealing with fire ants. They are THE ENEMY, and very much hated. IMO, they can't invade a fish-feeder (or my dogs' food bowls) if they're not alive. Therefore, physical deterrents to fire ant mobility are unnecessary around my place. ADVION is my friend! Fipronil too.

These things are terrible. They destroyed a new game trail camera within a week of setting it out. I have them professionally controlled in my 1 acre yard at home which is moderately effective, but not absolute. I'm not planning to attempt to control them at the farm, just want to keep them out of the fish food. Is that advion safe around fish? Such as, if they were to eat ant larva from a rain runoff.

I'm not sure how (much less IF) fish could readily access "contaminated" larvae after a heavy rainfall. Regardless, I refrain from posting my personal opinion regarding product-safety questions. I'll let the product's MSDS address that question.