Interesting Idea for pest control

18 years ago

Hi all, I hope you are having a good holiday season. Today I was sifting through some European sites and came across an interesting idea.

How many of you have ever had a pest infestation inside one of you vivs (ants, millipedes, slugs...)? Here's a method that might work to completely eliminate them:

1) remove all animals (that you want to survive) from the viv

2) get a big chunk of dry ice, put it in a bowl of hot water, and place the bowl in the viv

3) completely seal off the viv and wait

So...all the beasties die from CO2 poisoning, without adding any harmful chemicals to the vivarium.

The idea behind this method is CO2 production. There are many other ways to create the same effect, such as CO2 canisters, vinegar and baking soda, yeast and sugar...

What do you all think? I'm not sure it would work with some of the peskier creatures (like cockroaches), but it's definitely something to try before you strip the entire viv down and start over again.

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Comments (7)

jaqal
18 years ago
I don't know where the heck you would buy dry ice though. I doubt cockroaches would survive this though.
garyfla_gw
18 years ago
Hi
Wouldn't all that cold sort of kill all the plants??
Only pest i ever had that did real harm was slugs.But you can pick them out by hand or use the beer method.
Don't your animals eat these things??
gary
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iliketerrariums
18 years ago
the only problem I ever had was moths,(as mentioned in another post) tiny little moths that my frogs wouldnt eat, but my anoles (when added to the tank) had a field day and got rid of every one, I dont think I would want to take the chance of hurting my plants with the cold =)
Cdfortin
Original Author
18 years ago
Gary: The plants would love it. They thrive on extra CO2.

Iliketerrariums: The tank wouldn't get cold enough to do any damage to the plants.

Jaquel: You don'g have to use dry ice. You could use a CO2 canister, a mixture of sugar and yeast, or a mixture of vinegar and baking soda.

Many people have used this method of pest control with great success. I'm not advocating killing all the bugs in your terrarium (most of them are very beneficial). I just giving you all an idea in case a future problem pops up.
iliketerrariums
18 years ago
Cool, Thanks Cdfortin =)
garyfla_gw
18 years ago
Danny
An interesting idea but as I mentioned haven't had much of a pest problem.I've used CO2 on my planted tanks and tried it on the paludarium.Not much advantage as the light level is too low for the water plants and noticed no difference with terrestrials.
I've had a lot of strange things show up in the paludarium but didn't consider them pests as they did no harm.
Roaches,ants,springtails millipedes,mosquitos,damselflies
some type of midge, slugs ,mantis and geckos.
i used the beer trick with slugs as I do in the shadehouse
noted that roaches will also drown in it.lol
i keep no terrestrial animals so no problem. Right now I see nothing swimming,flying or crawling except for the fish.lol
gary
nathanhurst
18 years ago
Back of the envelope calculation for a cup (250ml - about 400g) of dry ice gives about 250L of CO2. I've bought a kg of dry ice for $10. You would want to put the lid on to reduce diffusion and I'm dubious about the effectiveness, but there is no problem with volume.