Flea fogging rooms with tanks

[rawb92]

Hey anyone have any advice on flea fogging a house where multiple rooms have tanks?

I'm guessing turning off all air pumps and making sure all tank lids are sealed? What if it's one of those long lasting "kills for months after" hotshot ones? 

Thanks for any advice!

[Gator]

@rawb92; Yes, shut off your air pumps, shut off the lights, cover the tanks with large (50 gallon) trash bags, set off the bombs, leave for three hours. When you get back, uncover the tanks, turn on the lights and the air pumps, your fish should be OK, you can open your windows to air the house out if it's not too cold outside. The insecticide will settle into your carpets and will kill fleas for a very long time so don't shampoo your carpets for a long while. Save the trash bags just in case you need to set off bombs again.

[StevesFishTanks]

I would maybe look into putting the air pump outside the window or something to at least keep the water aerated.

Hopefully this wouldnt cause more harm than good with gas exchange still happening on the surface of the water. 

Maybe someone smarter can chime in lol

[Flumpweesel]

Maybe run activated carbon in the filter for a few days after as a precaution.

But great advice from @Gator

Just remember to make sure everything you use in your tank is out of the danger zone or washed before use after.

 

 

 

[Mmiller2001]

Don't use them, just sprinkle borax into your carpet and then vacuum a week later. Repeat if necessary.

[BlueLineAquaticsSC]

I flea bombed my house and just turned off the filters/air and covered it with a blanket. I had no problems but I could have gotten lucky

[Guppysnail]

I’m with @Mmiller2001 on the borax. I wouldn’t risk it. I painted my house many years ago took every precaution and still lost a tank so now I’m paranoid. 

[rawb92]

Thanks everyone I'll definitely try the borax idea out! Most of my tanks are in the basement so I'll be able to isolate that area, maybe I can convince my partner to not use the foggers in the other room with tanks as well and just seal off the door way with painters plastic

[gardenman]

Don't expect too much from the Borax.  I had a big flea issue a few years back and decided to test various approaches. I set up pill bottles with various "flea killers" including Borax and combed fleas from my cats and deposited them in the various options. The fleas in the Borax lived fine for almost a week. I suspect they either died of dehydration or starved rather than got killed by the Borax. (And it was a lot of Borax.) I joked at the time that they might as well be at a ski resort. The same issue with diatomaceous earth and nearly everything else I tried. What ultimately worked for me was flea meds with Imidaclopid and Pyriproxyifen. Flea powders, flea sprays, garden pesticides, and everything else I'd tried didn't kill the little bloodsuckers. Maybe these were especially tough fleas, but the only thing I found that truly worked were the flea meds with those ingredients. (Generic versions seemed to work as well as the "name brands.") Good luck! Fleas can be a real pain.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Way back when I used saran wrap on my tanks and put trash bags over and turned off all the filters and covered them as well as all the other fish keeping equipment with trash bags and duck tape to seal them.