Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Fire ants in fish feeder

Opened my fish feeder to find a whole bunch of fire ants inside. Is this something to be concerned about or just added protein? I'm sure a few ants get flung into the pond every time the feeder goes off. I'm currently feeding a high protein feed that I bought from the fish farm, it doesn't have a brand name that I'm aware of. My pond bank is pretty steep, so the feeder is set with the legs at the highest setting in the front and the lowest in the back and I still had to dig out the bank a bit so that the feeder would toss in an upward direction. The back of the feeder is very close to the soil, not sure if that has something to do with it.

Thanks in advance

IMO the ants found an unlimited source of good food! They just got lucky.

I remember a long ago a post about a fire ant nest near a pond & many ants falling in the pond & being eaten. There were some BG deaths.

I like Amdro for fire ants. I would get a bottle of the granules, follow directions & put it around the feeder. Not sure what will happen? If the ants forage they will find the Amdro. If not, I would run the feeder dry, get rid of the ants & start over with a dose of Amdro around the base.

Ants on their own accord may move on when the feeder is empty of food & they have no structure around them as a nest for the Queen, her eggs, & larva.

I enjoy killing Fire Ants!

While they may not pose an immediate threat, my experience with them is they will destroy electronics and I am not sure how, but it seems they bring moisture in with them.

I have had pretty good luck with the Ortho Home Defense in a spray bottles for protecting my game cameras, they have actually destroyed a couple cheaper cameras for me, I completely quit mounting them on a tree, and started mounting the cameras on metal posts, then spray the posts down periodically with the Ortho stuff.

Have had to do the same thing on my humming bird feeders that they help themselves to, A little Ortho will put a complete stop to that for a good while.

Good Luck!

I've also had some issues with ants and electronics. Fortunately, my feeders are on peninsulas, so I will treat the entire area. Will do the other one as well pro-actively.

I'll just through this out there, but Tree Tanglefoot on feeder legs is what I use to keep ants out. It's messy, so I spread it on the legs with a butter knife. Zero ants get in the hopper.

I used axle grease on the legs.