HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Woke up to find ANTS in my large tank! What can I do????


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Clean up their scent trail leading into the tank with vinegar water. Then place a thick layer a vaseline around the outside rim (I do the bottom) of the tank and any wires/tubes leading up into the tank to keep them from getting back in. Then you can squish/remove any left inside. After you've got the vaseline on all tanks to keep the ants out, you can then go ahead and put out ant baits (outside of tanks of course).

Edit: if the ants have made a home of your crabitat, I recommend deep cleaning it to remove them all. But the above will work if they're just trailing in for the food.

Thank you. I don't have ants anywhere else in the house and it's like they moved in over night! So you think if I can keep anymore from coming in I can get all the ones on the inside before they hurt the crabs. I can't possibly empty the tank with that many crabs. I've got lots of molters.

They're quick like that! They show up here every spring. Sometimes I think I must have the worlds largest ant colony under my house!
Yes, you should be fine with the Vaseline around the rim to keep them out. I doubt they've moved in, they're probably just after the food.

I find this ant bait to work the best.

It doesn't matter how clean I get my house...we have ants constantly this time of year. To the extent that we can't put drinks on our nightstands and relaxing at night in bed yields at least a dozen times killing an ant crawling on both my husband or myself and on my phone, tablet and computer. ..I hate spring.

I hope you're right. If they move in I will freak out! I have Vaseline around the lower rim. Tonight I'll do a better job when my husband is home to help. It was hard getting to the back side, but I did a sloppy job best I could. Lol. Thanks for the quick help. I've missed everyone here so much!!!!

Yep. I always figured it had to do with where I'm located. Every spring they make an appearance in the crab tanks if I forget to put the vaseline on ahead of time. This year they popped up in the mouse tanks too. We also get a lot of those fuzzy jumping spiders in spring. I don't mind them much though. They're kind of cute.

Fall brings food mites and fruit flies to the crabitats. And these big ugly grayish spiders to the house that drop from the porch roof onto my head and run fast.

mom23 wrote:I hope you're right. If they move in I will freak out! I have Vaseline around the lower rim. Tonight I'll do a better job when my husband is home to help. It was hard getting to the back side, but I did a sloppy job best I could. Lol. Thanks for the quick help. I've missed everyone here so much!!!!

It works for me! It's kind of messy but keeps them out so you can bait the ants. This way the ants won't be dragging poison into the tanks. Who knows, you may get lucky and they'll leave altogether without access to the tank. (but more likely they'll just look elsewhere in your house)

I was glad to see you post! It's been a while. I hope you'll be able to pop in now and then.

Calla I think if a spider landed on my head I would freak out. One of my biggest fears!

Oh. I do. I yell and shake my hair out and dance around like an idiot. Every. Time. I try to be very cautious going out the door in fall. Open and wait. Even when they land in front of me I still get squirmy. They seem to startle easily and sudden movements cause them to flail around and drop from the porch roof and wall. They hit the ground running. Sometimes one manages to squeeze under the door somehow and run across the living room floor.

Spiders are pretty cool. Some are really cute or beautiful. But those gray things. Eehhh. I could do without em.

I took a small bowl and put honey in it. I left it in the tank a short while and it drew the ants to it. Then I removed it with the ants. There were A LOT! I'm going to do it again, but there must be a TON of ants in there. I didn't see but a few until I put the honey in there.

mom23 wrote:I took a small bowl and put honey in it. I left it in the tank a short while and it drew the ants to it. Then I removed it with the ants. There were A LOT! I'm going to do it again, but there must be a TON of ants in there. I didn't see but a few until I put the honey in there.

Great idea! It really doesn't take long for them to find a food source and pass on the message.

Its possible that the ants moved their entire colony into your enclosure while
you were sleeping.

What the heck do I do if they did that? When you look at the tank as a whole I can see a few, but there must be hundreds in there...they keep covering the bowl.

Yep, it sounds like you have a colony of ants.
Do you have any molters? If you don't, you could just change the substrate.