Bad ant problem

[chameleonneeds]

Hey all I seem to be having some trouble with ants. At first they were just coming into my room and they sometimes demolished all my crickets and then they started going into my baby chameleon tubs and took some of their crickets too. They even attacked one of my little baby panthers (she is totally fine now and doing great )

Now that I've moved the babies into bigger cages I'm using live plants.

Now I've found the ants in my pot plants. They have established in 4 pots! They aren't huge ants but they keep eating the crickets I put in the cages for the chams. I would just poison the things out of existence but I don't want to use poisons around my chameleons.

Does anyone know exactly how I can get rid of them??

 

[Solid Snake]

I have heard that mint extract will keep them away.
Im having an issue with two types of ants, but in my outdoor cages.
I havnt tried the mint extract yet, I plan to though, just to keep them away from the enclosures. Then Im going to poison them "out of existence"

 

[Elizadolots]

I think the first order of business is to find out how they are getting into your room. That's where you might want to use something a bit more aggressive (particularly if you find out where they are coming from OUTSIDE....if you can poison the outside of the "door" you'll stop them from coming in). Then you need to eliminate the ones still living in your room. I would pull the plants and wash them completely, repot them in new, ant-free soil.

 

[chameleonneeds]

I torched them with some deodarant and matches, those popping noises were like fireworks to me

I have put some ant powder poison around where I think they are coming from, somehow they came into my room and established in the skirting in my room! So I put poison to where I found them coming out, by that time they moved into my plants so Im on a mission to get them out of there now.

And thanks I will try that mint extract if I get some!

 

[ChamFreak]

Use vinegar and water solution. Safe and gets rid of scent. to kill them, use salt and water solution. dont use them together, or one after another. Spray them with salt n water, clean it up. then spray vinegar solution to keep them from coming back

Ants navigate by using chemical trails. They detect the trail by using thier antenae. When you spray vinegar on the area, it removes the chemical trail and makes them burn a little.

if your feet burned, you would stay away too

 

[chameleonneeds]

Thanks Chamfreak I'll definitely use that method and see how it goes