Fish tanks and bug spray!!!

[Drewbaby]

My mom just gave her puppy a bath and found a few fleas so now she's blaming my dog who gets a monthly treatment for all kinds of pests. So there's no chance she brought in the fleas. Anyway she's talking about having the house "bombed" with those bug bombs. What should I do about the fish tanks. I would really hate to lose them, especially my reef and my girlfriends planted tank. I'm not moving them out of the house for the day just to de-bug the whole house because my moms dog brought in fleas. Need some advice

thanks
drew

[TheWeaz]

I would say you need to remove the tanks but I'm sure someone else will chime in with a little more help.

[lougotzz]

Cant your jut cover them with some plastic wrap?

[reefvilla]

You would have to seal it air tight....which is almost impossible.

[Metal Man 1221]

trash bags over the tank and duct tape, like said, you need to have it air tight, turn off all return pumps and skimmers, i would convince your mom to eradicate the pests in another form, i hear that bug bombs are not always the best way to do it any way, i know that there is a powder you can put on your carpet and furnature, and you can put the dogs toys and bedding in a garbage bag for six weeks much like you would do with lice

good luck

[trb]

There are other ways of treating a house for fleas besides bug bombs, which won't work for all aspects of flea development. Eggs will still survive and hatch later, starting the cycle over again. You would need to use some of the flea specific spray with a growth inhibitor.

There are several others with threads on here that have had apartments sprayed, and they have been told to turn off the pumps and seal off the tanks with plastic and masking tape to keep the fumes from reaching the tank water. If they are not sealed off well, good chance of many things dying. Open the windows after treating and air it out.

We had fleas from a relative's cat that stayed with us for a month, never had them in the 12 years before. I sprayed the house with some flea specific spray in a can that you point down and spray on the floor and furniture. First you vacuum EVERYTHING, floors and furniture, to get as many eggs and fleas picked up, then spray. It was not a bad odor, we only had our FW tank back then and I turned it off and covered it with a painters tarp. Did not have any problems with it.

Check with some local insecticide or outdoor supply places for flea specific treatments. The stuff we got was about $20 a can and that was good enough for about 2000 sqft.
This is it: http://www.zoecon.com/pdfs/Precor200...pray-label.pdf

Our local store: http://www.solutionsstores.com/produ...re&m2=Pet+Care

Good luck!

[njfish77]

My house has an ant problem which has to be treated so were in the same boat. The worst room is the one with my tank. Does anyone know how they treat for ants and will my tank be ok?

[Shane Hoffman]

I bombed my house twice last year for a fruit fly and ant issue. I bought some plastic like you use to cover floors when you paint and coverd the whole tank. It took 2 rolls of duct tape but I sealed down every edge either to the carpet or the wall. I ran an air pump outside and hooked up 25 feet of airline to my skimmer venturi to pump in some fresh air. I had no issues what so ever. The tank was covered for 2 hours one time and almost 3 hours the next. I have read several posts on here where people did the same thing.

[travis32]

For ants, just use ant traps you put down on the ground.. Ants carry the poison to their home and ants are gone.

As far as fleas.. Ugg. You have any idea how harmful bug bombs are? My parents let those off many moons ago in the basement.. Humans couldn't be in the room for days afterwards it reeked so bad with chemical. And my room was right next to it... URRG.

Everything gets coated in a film. Furniture, the air, walls.. Everything it's just nasty stuff. If you have human food, animal food, water, dishes, anything you have in the room for human consumption or use, will have to be pretty close to thrown away..

Bug bombs are very nasty, and Mythbusters did an episode on them. They can actually cause your house to explode (well according to mythbusters anyways.)

That's like use a nuclear bomb to destroy a small pond of frogs.. Treat the fleas another more humane way.. Your dog, the humans in your house, and fish will all love you for it!!!

BUG Bombs should seriously be outlawed or limited to non-human habitat use.

[Shane Hoffman]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1689090

Here is my old post with exact instructions on what I did. ''Also lowes carries bug bombs that are not as caustic as others. They are some kind of GREEN bug spray. Your tank will be fine if you do what I did. My house smelled completely normal with no signs of the bug spray 3 hours later.

[Drewbaby]

Thanks for all the quick advice. My mother gets on these speils when anything gets "out of hand" as she says, but I don't think talking her out of using some form of spray or fogger bug bomb is possible. How much duct tape and plastic do you think I'll need for the 180 gal with sump, 55 gal reef, 30 gallon mantis tank, 30 gallon planted fresh water tank, and a 10 gallon quarantine tank that's housing a small porcupine puffer with ick? Its a bit much, but when multi tank syndrome kicks in on 2 people what can you do lol

[1swtlx]

As for the ant post. I must say Baby Powder is a proven winner! I have a room full of parrots + my salt water aquarium in a different room so poision is out of the question. Lay a generous bead of baby powder where the ants are coming in the house and your done. I left the powder lining the base-boards until I was confident the ants gave up

Ants hate talcum powder.

[easydoesit]

Doug tells the exterminator he set off a bug bomb... "those things just make them horny" - King of Queens

Those things probably give you cancer too. JMO

[bobparker]

just a thought while on topic.

If you have someone who is a micro bio freak and wears a can of Lysol on her hip like a six shooter....buy some masking tape and a marker, and put STOP! on every can of cleaning agent in the house. Underneath "STOP!" in small letters I write "where's the fish tank?" when you live in a house full of preppy teenage girls such learning labels are essential.

[jeepguy242]

call an exterminator, i had my house sprayed for fleas, tanks and everything, it was cheap, like 30$ for one traetment, and i had an infestation that was real bad, my youngest daughter had fleas jumping onto her while walking through her room, the guy came over and sprayed the carpet and her bed, along with the rest of the house, no more fleas.... cheaper and safer than bug bombs anyhow! tell hry youl pay for it if you have to, those bombs dont work and they smell like a dead skunk...

[lougotzz]

Just get a giant plastic and tape it to the floor with painters tape. They are usually 20'x10' so it should cover the whole thing. You can get them at the paint store.