# Half life of insecticide ??



## Guest (May 18, 2005)

Greetings everyone, 

I have a fairly large custom viv that I originally set up as just a terrarium in Jan 04 but I am now considering converting it over to darts.

However, sometime last summer an ant colony tried to setup shop so I decided to deter them with a bit of RAID insecticide. 

I'd say it's been a good 9 months since it was used and the viv gets a good spraying 3x a day from my misting system so would it be safe to start considering some froglets???

If not, anything I can do to detox the viv short of a complete teardown?


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

If you used enough RAID to "deter" an ant colony you may have applied a bit more than you thought. 

The active ingredients of RAID ant killer are imiprothrin and cypermethrin. Both are highly TOXIC to aquatic animals. Imiprothrin is a synthetic pyrethroid that is partly soluble in water. It breaks down readily in sunlight and has a half life of about a month. However, it bind readily to soil and that complicates the analysis. Cypermethrin is another synthetic pyrethroid that is insoluble in water. It also binds to soil and can be broken down by soil microbes. Rough half life is a month.

So it kind of comes down to this. How much did you actually apply and how comfortable are you that waiting 9 months will have allowed for adequate time to either break down or flush the applied chemicals? How much flushing as opposed to misting followed by evaporation actually occurred? Hard to say. Your choices are to either bite the bullet and add an animal for observation or tear it down and start over. 

My own bias would be option #2. As a chemist I can cite chapter and verse about MSDS. But no one has studied your experiment of applying a concentrated amount of these two toxins into a relatively closed system and asked the question as to when that enclosed system becomes safe for sensitive organisms.

Good luck. My 0.02

Bill


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## Guest (May 18, 2005)

Bill,

Appreciate the info, that's definately more than I was hoping for. 

As to the question of how much did I use I'd estimate it to be 2, perhaps 3, 1 seconds blasts from an aerosol can into my 30"x30"x36H terrarium.

I know it was enough to persuade them to find a new home for a month or so, but not enough to keep them from returning.

The location of the application was relatively high, the upper 3rd of the interior, pretty much just on my rockwork up near my metal halide light so it wasn't sprayed down near the soil. Also, approx. once a week I run the misters for about 4 or 5 minutes to give the viv a good cleansing.

Also, not sure if this makes a difference or not, but the terrarium currently contains a wide variety of insects, from spiders to self-sustaining groups of gnats?

Either way, I'm realistically several months away if I do indeed decide to do this so I imagine we will probably be talking close to a full year by then if it actually comes to fruition. 

Brett


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Brett,

Not spraying into the soil layer definitely helps. The presence of invertebrate life in the viv indicates you don't have a huge buildup of toxin. The good thing about synthetic pyrethroids is that they do break down in time unlike certain other insecticide components so that is working in your favor. 

I misunderstood your comment about the nature of the ant colony deterrant...I envisioned a collection of ants in the substrate and the need to seriously blast them to subdue the restless natives :lol: This was more like the chemical version of a shot across the bow.

Given that and the fact that you are likely to see the viv going for another few months before occupancy, you'll probably be okay.

Good luck.

Bill

P.S. I highly recommend finding a less toxic way to deter your ants in the future :wink:


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## Guest (May 20, 2005)

Understood and thanks again.

The ants took a liking to a piece of grapewood in the upper part of the viv just under one of the misters and decided to move in. I believe they were actually coming in from the electrical outlet behind the cabinet where I have a hard time reaching.

The good news is that they appear to have either left on their own or have been picked off by some baby spiders that recently showed up. 

I'm hoping that if I do decide to add some frogs they will take care of any ant problems in the long term. 

Looks like I can now cross one hurdle off the list and go back to reading and researching possible future inhabitants.

Brett


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