Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Help I have fire ants in 3 of my 48 half bbl. system. I have tried fluding the beds an those with ants and those around them and all does make them climb the plants. There is lots things that will kill the but will also kill the fish. Anybody have ideas I would love to have any ideas. Thanks Jerry Littlefield

i sprayed my ant-infested plants with a STRONG chilli spray (see abduls thread - aquaponics obsession, about 5 pages from the last page for the recipe) and it seems to have rid them of the ants

I wanted to ask (before I tried it) does anyone know if Tilapia will eat fire ants (at all, and/or without being harmed) if the ants were dumped into their tank?

I'm thinking that if they will then there are bountiful free resources of fish food mounding up all over the place for hundreds of miles in every direction from where I live, starting with my yard.

I am not sure about your fish but a few years ago they had problums with trout in Brazos river below PK lake eating fire ants and dying from it. Jerry

Diatomaceous earth will kill fire ants and probably all ants.
Food grade should not hurt the fish as humans can eat it to get rid of worms [great for poultry too, for internal parasites and lice and mites]
The only problem I can see is for it to work properly on ants it has to be maintained as a powder, so maybe dusting the plants then force the ants out of GB by flooding.

OK, I just read that according to the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, fire ants kill fish, so jerryandjuliel is correct. Darn. I had hoped I had happened upon an over-bountiful food source!

http://www.masgc.org/page.asp?id=412

Grits Is all you need , Pour on the bed ants eat take down moisture expands and they die .. wont hurt fish or ground water or anything

Xgaurdner, I've heard the grits theory before as well, I'm from Florida, and fire ants will just about tote off a grown man in north florida. It's definatly worth a try, maybe try grinding it down into a smaller grain size in a blender. Fire ants are nothing to mess around with. I've seen my yard flood due to week long heavy rains, and instead of drowning like any decent pest.. they build rafts out of their own bodies and float on top of the water. It's no fun to accidentally bump into one of those rafts either. Iv'e actually taken a squirt bottle of gasolene and circled up those floating rafts and killled an entire colony at one time. Very satisfying after a spending half my life doing the bug dance out of your jeans in public because they have attacked you.