Ants got into cricket cage! D:<

[bargaviking]

Hi guys,

So I have had these crickets (in a Cricket Keeper, the kind with tubes) for about a week. Since I live in a fairly warm area, I thought it would be a great idea to keep them outside on the balcony...everything was fine this entire week...and then today, I went out there to give my frog his meal and the cage was -swarming- with ants. I don't know if they were attracted by the food (raw potato), or by the few dead crickets in there, but they're everywhere...Tomorrow, I'm going to kill everything in there and get fresh crickets. But how can I prevent this from happening in the future? Putting the cricket cage inside the apartment won't work, one, because my roommates wouldn't love that, and two, we have an ant problem -inside- as well.
Thanks for your time,
A T

Edit: Now that I think about it...this has absolutely nothing to do with tree frogs...haha, I just kind of automatically put it here because I have a tree frog. Sorry. Move this thread to the relevant subforum please?

[bshmerlie]

You could put a ring of talcum powder around where the cricket keeper sits on the patio. Just like when you're camping the ants wont cross it. Baby powder does the same thing.

[UncleChester]

A moat will also work. Take a shallow pan that's larger than your cricket keeper and put a bit of water in it, then put the keeper in the middle. You may end up with dead ants this way if they are really determined to get at your crickets.

[bargaviking]

Thank you both : ) I'll try the moat for now since I don't have any talcum/baby powder on hand. I will buy some powder soon though as it sounds a bit easier to manage.