Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help fire ant controll

dumb question...

new tank, stocked, doing good for a newbee..
got some fire ants about 200 feet from the tank, int the watershed area..

I have used a product that has food grade "Diatomaceous Earth", "Pyrethrin" and "Pipernyl Butoxide"..

Ok, I know that D.E. is fed to dogs and live stock for the controll of internall parasites..Don't know about the other stuff on the lable other than it supposed to be a vegetable extract.

Question.. should I apply this product to the ant mounds

thanks virgil

We have had some heavy rains recently and the fire ant hills have really multiplied. We have started using dry grits on the hills and some times we have to add two or three times. We were using ant and bug concentrate at the heaviest suggested mix per gallon except near the water. We had success with this and mild success with the grits.

Virgil,

One of the problems with fire ants is that, unless you get the Queen, the colony will just move a few feet and start over again. Products like Amdro are designed to get the Queen by providing a poison bait that the worker ants will carry back to her and her attendants. When she dies, the colony dies with her.

A little known fact about fire ants is that they will cause fish kills....fish, especially BG, will eat them, usually after a large rain washes the fire ants into the pond, and it sometimes results in a fish kill...not often, but it does happen.

Virgil,

Pyrethrins are hard on fish, but the concentration from killing a single mound is certainly not enough to hurt. Pyrethrins do degrade very quickly in sun and air.

I hate fire ants. There was a program about a Texas fire ant experiment on National Geographic TV. A tiny South American fly called the "forid fly" lays eggs in their thorax. A fly maggot hatches in the thorax, and migrates to the head, and the head falls off. Forid flies absolutely freak out fire ants. They will not forage or defend the mound when they are flying about. I got lots of pleasure watching the tables turned on the ants. I think the flies are spreading at about 7 miles per year. Fingers crossed that those little flies adapt to the cooler weather!

got a hold of the manufacture.. he states that it would be difficult at best to get enough of this stuff in the water and into the fish gills to do any damage. he stated that I most likely could not afford to buy enough of this stuff to hurt the fish.

I'm a gonna do it. I have used this stuff before and it sure works good.