Water tank ant problem

[petermik]

Gents....occasionally the filter on the washing machine at our house gets clogged and filling with water becomes painfully slow....solution obviously clean it,but I could not understand why these "black bits" were getting is as I have a filter fitted to the inlet (stainless water tank is on a tower and filled by pump from our well when needed) ok the other day I opened the lid on the tank and the underside was just a mass of ants.....that explains the "black bits"....dead ants falling into the tank and getting into the water supply....my solution that I,d like to run by you is this.....I,m going to cover the hole at the top with mozzie screen material and hold it in place with plastic tie wraps (I know I will never eradicate the ant problem permanently) hopefully this will stop the buggers falling into the tank and causing this problem in the future.....a good solution or not?

Edited September 4, 2019 by petermik

[eyecatcher]

Check your washer first for ants ingress, powder tray?

I always understood dead ants to float in which case they could never find their way into a tank outlet.

 

Perhaps spray the outside of the tank towards the top and around the bottom with a chaindrite spray, ant chalk as a barrier to stop them getting in anyway

[petermik]

8 hours ago, eyecatcher said:

Check your washer first for ants ingress, powder tray?

I always understood dead ants to float in which case they could never find their way into a tank outlet.

 

Perhaps spray the outside of the tank towards the top and around the bottom with a chaindrite spray, ant chalk as a barrier to stop them getting in anyway

No ants in the washer except for those being fed in by the water supply....ants are getting in through the hole in top of the tank,the inside of the cover it would seem is an ideal nesting place very warm and humid...thousands of the buggers and they must be dropping down inside causing the problem...yes I,ll spray (chaindrite) to kill them off initially and cover the hole up (around 12" diameter) with mozzie type netting to stop them falling in in the future...hopefully

[eyecatcher]

Dont let the chaindrite spray get any where near your water though, 

[sometimewoodworker]

3 hours ago, petermik said:

I,m going to cover the hole at the top with mozzie screen material and hold it in place with plastic tie wraps (I know I will never eradicate the ant problem permanently) hopefully this will stop the buggers falling into the tank and causing this problem in the future.....a good solution or not?

Unless you use several layers the mesh probably isn't small enough to stop the black ants. Borax and sugar is a good cheap safe way to reduce the problem by a lot.