metaldector
Contributor
I had an encounter with scuba ants last night and it wasn't the first time. I'll get to last night's encounter in a minute. First, several years ago I went cave diving in Florida's cave country. At the time I was using double 95's and a wet suit. I still had my gauge consol with pressure gauge, computer, and compass attached to my first stage. As I suited up I saw some small ants wandering around my chest on the wet suit. I brushed them off but more kept coming back. Finally I located the source of the problem, ants were living/nesting in my gauge console. I dove for a 90 minute dive with a maximum depth of 110'. Upon surfacing ants were still coming out of the console. I had to disassemble the unit and flush it out totally before getting rid of the tiny biting beasts.
I hang all of my gear from a rack in the garage. These ants had to have crawled up the wall across the ceiling down the pipe holding my equipment rack, onto the hangers, down the first stage to the high pressure hose and into my console. They would have to have reversed the trip for food. I was impressed at how far the buggers had to go to make this nest.
Last night I was cleaning my garage and two of my booties were on the floor where they lay for about three weeks. I started to pick up one and out came a mob of big angry red ants. The bootie was plugged with grass clippings and other debris and the ants were fully nested inside the bootie. After spraying with bug killer I soaked the bootie in a bucket of water and flushed the critters out. Thousands of eggs and ants floated about in the bucket covering the water surface and crawling all over the bucket lip. Standing there in my flip flops wasn't prudent and so I left the bucket and bootie over night. This morning all was calm the invasion was over and bootie secured.
Has anyone else had the invasion of the ants in their scuba gear of is it just me?? A friend suggested that they were seeking moisture, perhaps but we have had a lot of rain the past week.
I hang all of my gear from a rack in the garage. These ants had to have crawled up the wall across the ceiling down the pipe holding my equipment rack, onto the hangers, down the first stage to the high pressure hose and into my console. They would have to have reversed the trip for food. I was impressed at how far the buggers had to go to make this nest.
Last night I was cleaning my garage and two of my booties were on the floor where they lay for about three weeks. I started to pick up one and out came a mob of big angry red ants. The bootie was plugged with grass clippings and other debris and the ants were fully nested inside the bootie. After spraying with bug killer I soaked the bootie in a bucket of water and flushed the critters out. Thousands of eggs and ants floated about in the bucket covering the water surface and crawling all over the bucket lip. Standing there in my flip flops wasn't prudent and so I left the bucket and bootie over night. This morning all was calm the invasion was over and bootie secured.
Has anyone else had the invasion of the ants in their scuba gear of is it just me?? A friend suggested that they were seeking moisture, perhaps but we have had a lot of rain the past week.
when they came up?
