well long story short a stray cat was in the house with our purebred himalayan and now there are fleas. how could i go about covering the tank to be able to bomb the house without loosing anything?
how to cover tank for a flea bomb?
- Thread starter mapleredta
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Yikes. I guess best bet would be to completely wrap it in plastic sheeting, you can get rolls of it at HD or Lowes making sure to tape everything air tight..completely shut the system down. Do your bomb...then vaccum welll and turn the tank back on. /scary hehe
im kind of ashamed actually
Whew this is risky. How long does it take for the flea bomb to do its magic? If it is several hours, I am not sure there is a good way to do this really. Your tank needs oxygen exchange to keep everything alive and if you seal it for hours you will likely loose your fish. I would probably relocate the livestock to a QT area outside the bomb zone, turn off the pumps/skimmer, seal up the tank with some saran wrap and painters tape, put a large plastic drop cloth over the entire thing and seal it down with painters tape, drop the bomb, wait till it is clear, turn on the pumps for an hour or so, drop a cheap fish in the tank and see what it does overnight. If he is still kicking and happy the next day, move everything back. Don't know if it will work but it is the best I have.
Don't be embarrased about fleas. If you have pets, you will likely have fleas at some point.
Don't be embarrased about fleas. If you have pets, you will likely have fleas at some point.
thanks everybody the bomb is supposed to go off for 3 hours.
Leave some poweheads running in the tank and turn everything off. The tank should be fine as long as you cover it up very well. Needs to be air tight. And i would suggest opening hte house up and vacuuming very well before uncovering the tank. I have 180s off for much longer then that when i have had return pumps go out. Good luck!
thanks twd
Oxygen exchange requires some circulation around the tank as well. Sealing off the tank and keeping the pumps on will buy you some time but if you seal up the tank at some point probably a couple hours surface exchange will start to slow to a point where it isn't buying you much. Maybe if you seal off an area rather than the top of the tank and sump, but if you plastic off the top of your tank, you probably aren't going to buy yourself much time with the pumps running.
If this is a 24 hour bomb, I would not seal off my tank that long with livestock in it. You might be OK, but in a medium stocked tank with a lot of surface area the tank mates can die in as little as 4 hours. I can't imagine a sealed tank with pumps on going 24. Plus if you miss a seal a flea bomb will likely take out the entire tank... those things are mean.
This is all IMO and I am paranoid.
jhutto
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Dealt with fleas over the years, before we got into reefs. We usually just spray the carpets repetitively to kill adults and then the eggs when they hatch. Have never used a bomb just localized spot treatment for the area. That and the precaution others have mentioned might work, but no guarantees.
Cameron is right, but how about this for a solution: Seal off the entire tank as best as you can. Then run a vinyl tube from the intake of your skimmer to the outside. Make sure the end of the tube that is outside is far enough away from the house so that vapors will not reach it. This should provide your tank with plenty of fresh oxygen while the rest of the house is fumigated. It also has the added benefit of slightly pressurizing your sealed tank (if your skimmer is powerful enough), so air should flow from the sealed tank to the ambient environment, prevent fumes from flowing the other way.
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A trick tat a friend told me is to sprinkle salt on the carpets. It works. just go to Kroger or whatever and pick up some table salt sprinkle it on all your carpets then in a few weeks vacuum it up. The salt dehydrates the fleas and eggs. Just make sure you treat the cat to prevent them from coming back. Also treat the yard with Sevens Dust. You can get it from Home Depot.
I've actually had to do this with a fish/anemone tank before.
First off, don't bomb the place, those bombs rarely work anyway. When I had the same problem, I went to "Do It Yourself Pest Control" (yes, thats actually the name of the place) and bought this stuff that I cant remember the name of (will remember the very second it becomes non-relevant though) that looked like Elmer's Glue and had no smell at all. Was told I should mix one ounce in water and spray close to the floor with a coarse spray (I actually had hardwoods so I bought a new mop, mixed the stuff properly, and mopped the stuff on the floor).
I did turn off everything on my tank and covered it with garbage bags and taped it (didn't loose any tank inhabitants) while I applied the stuff (openned all the windows incase fumes accumulated, but there was no fumes).
Go to Do It Yourself and see if you can find a water based flea spray, then spray close to the floor with a coarse spray, or mop it on where you can.
Worked for me.....
First off, don't bomb the place, those bombs rarely work anyway. When I had the same problem, I went to "Do It Yourself Pest Control" (yes, thats actually the name of the place) and bought this stuff that I cant remember the name of (will remember the very second it becomes non-relevant though) that looked like Elmer's Glue and had no smell at all. Was told I should mix one ounce in water and spray close to the floor with a coarse spray (I actually had hardwoods so I bought a new mop, mixed the stuff properly, and mopped the stuff on the floor).
I did turn off everything on my tank and covered it with garbage bags and taped it (didn't loose any tank inhabitants) while I applied the stuff (openned all the windows incase fumes accumulated, but there was no fumes).
Go to Do It Yourself and see if you can find a water based flea spray, then spray close to the floor with a coarse spray, or mop it on where you can.
Worked for me.....
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you know if you order some front line plus you wont have to bomb.
