Help I have ants starting to nest in the Terraium where I keep my frogs!

[InsanityShard]

Hello, I have a very big problem. What I'm sure are either Pharohs Ants or Singapore Ants have started nesting in my Terrarium. They ate all the crickets food, they went after the crickets in their separate box and I had to dump all 3 boxes in at once, the ants had already been starting to get into the terrarium, and I don't know if they will hunt the frogs or not. The tank is a child proof reptile tank, 3 feet long, 2 feet tall, 2 feet wide, with 4 fully grown wild caught Australian Green Tree Frogs (3 females, one male). I don't know how to get them out of the tank, they've definately started making nesting tunnels and all. I've been keeping an ear out for the frogs calling if they start going after them, but I'm freaking out a bit. They ate all the frogs food and the frogs foods food, the only safe point for the frogs is the small water container they have, which is a cleaned, reused small ice cream tub. There are more than just a few ants, they already nipped at my frogs when I dumped the ant covered crickets in, hoping the crickets could get away from the ants by hiding in the tank, but I was wrong. What can I do? I even tried putting some salt in for the ants to eat, but they're leaving that alone now and moved from the pot they were nesting in into the terrarium. There's a serious heatwave/drought at the moment, they've even been in our sink, but if they move in I don't think they'll move out at all, and I'm worried those tiny ants might kill my frogs. I've seen ants like that kill a baby kookaburra I'd tried to save once... The best I could do if my frogs were attacked would be to move them into 1 foot long, 1 foot tall, half a foot wide containers... One is being used to breed more crickets, the other is currently empty, waiting as a backup tank for emergencies like this or for my fish tank. If worse comes to worst I could release them again, but with the drought and heatwave, even the pond across the road they've been living in has had a major water level drop. I got them from my neighbor, she found them hiding in her dried up pots, hoping for water... I really don't think they'll go back to the pond, people moved in there, even the kangaroos which sometimes graze on our lawns have been avoiding it, and it's their main drinking source. I really don't know what to do.

There are a lot of reasons I took them in, the drought is so bad, aside from all our trees dying aside from right next to rivers or lakes, there's even a creek in town that dried out, grew grass in the bottom then the grass died. And that wasn't one of the seasonal ones. It's hurricane season and there hasn't been a single one all year, there are two suburbs known for flooding every year and they haven't flooded at all in the last couple of years. My frogs definately aren't eating the ants, nor are they even interested, even when nipped. We've has about 10 minutes of rain in the last 3 months in this area, along with record breaking heatwaves, I really don't want to release them into that... Even the huge evergreens are all wilted and brown in a lot of places... I need the ants out, I know they are capable of taking down frogs, and they might even starve the frogs if they keep eating their food. I know the frogs didn't eat all those crickets, it'd been taking them a few days to get through even one box, let alone 3 boxes. Since they're wild caught I don't know if they'll eat dead ones. I really need help.

[elly]

The drought sounds terrible.

The only thing I can think of to do is to clean out the entire tank and replace the substrate. The ants could still get back in so it might be good to use a mixture of sugar and boric acid around the tank or wherever the ants are getting in. I haven't personally used that against ants though so I don't know how it would work. You might even want to try ant poison, but not close to the tank or where the frogs are.

[privet01]

I agree with the boric acid. In this part of the world you typically find it sold as a roach poison. It's usually a fine powder and can be very lightly dusted anywhere outside your viv. It can also be mixed with sugar or other baits for them to take back to their home. However it's slow acting. But if you are having an infestation due to drought or other circumstances, they will be very hard to get rid of unless the whole community is working together to get rid of them. Otherwise until you get relief from the drought, they will stay where the moisture is.

Some ants are not bothered by boric acid.

[InsanityShard]

My mum thinks the frogs should go without soil in their tank for a while. The ants would still go in after the crickets and water, though... How long could I keep two frogs in a 1 foot long, 1 foot tall, half a foot wide container? If I can keep them in those for a while I can have them inside in my room. The ants stopped coming in here ages ago after I kept putting salt where they come in. They haven't been after my cats food, budgies food, or fish tanks in ages. (Yes I seriously have all those pets in my bedroom, but the cats spend most of their time outside).

I'd decided if I have to keep the frogs long term, they become my pets, but if I keep them less than 3 months, I leave open the tank lid and let me choose to leave. Would 3 months be enough to dull their hunting/survival skills?

[elly]

As far as the crickets go, maybe you could put the container on top of a stool or table or something and put a ring of Vaseline around the legs so that if the ants try to go up them they get stuck?

Letting the frogs go without soil in the tank would work, but you'd have to clean up the bottom of the tank when they poop. You could put down paper towels to make cleanup easier. I wouldn't keep the frogs in the small tank very long, but it should be fine just long enough to clean out the big tank.

As far as letting the frogs go, I wouldn't do it in the middle of a drought unless I could put them near a body of water. Personally I'd think their hunting skills would still be fine. Some people might disagree. The frogs are probably less scared of people than they should be but I understand wild Australian Green Tree frogs are pretty docile already so...?

[Dace]

Can you put the frogs and crickets on a table with its legs sitting in pans of water?