Boric Acid POWDER with Sock method

[AK-]

I know, I bought the wrong stuff… the thing is Duda Diesel was supposedly out of small quantities so I order 3 years worth of Boric Acid (powder). Last year I tried to mix with water and dump in the pool… I don’t want to remember how long it took to dissolve….

Has anyone tried to use the sock method with boric acid? Does it work?

 

[ajw22]

No reason it should not work. It may just take a lot of time to add the amount of Boric Acid you need through socks.

 

[Saturn94]

I’m not sure the sock method would work well for adding boric acid. As Allen mentioned, it’ll likely take a lot of time to add enough. The other concern I have has to do with an issue I ran into when trying a different method of adding boric acid. I put a bunch of BA in a bucket, then added water to dissolve it. The BA instantly solidified into a solid rock! It took forever to get it to dissolve! I would be concerned that putting a sock packed with BA would solidify when put in the water. Sprinkling BA into water seems to avoid this issue.

 

[ajw22]

I put a bunch of BA in a bucket, then added water to dissolve it.

Never add water to dry chemicals.

Always add the chemicals to a large volume to water.

 

[Mdragger88]

You’re in for a treat … pour it a solo cup at a time in the pool through your skimmer net. This takes a while….

 

[Saturn94]

Never add water to dry chemicals.

Always add the chemicals to a large volume to water.

Yep! Lessoned learned.

 

[Mdragger88]

Continue to use your skimmer net as a strainer to help dissolve it as it sits on top of the water. Never forget your powdered boric acid experience. I know I sure won’t!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Boric acid has good solubility in water. The powder is just a pain because it will float and get blown on the wind. I would suggest carefully dumping a scoop of powder into the pool water close to the surface and then brushing the slug of powder around. It should dissolve fairly quickly once it’s in the water.

And don’t forget to mix it with equal parts powdered sugar and leave it all around ant mounds and along exterior walls … great ant and cockroach poison.

 

[AK-]

I tried the sock… I wish CYA would dissolve that fast… the powder is so fine that enough of it gets thru the skimmer sock and float to make the technique useless. The good news is I used all the powder, so next time I’ll make sure to buy granules.

Edit: when I complained about the time to dissolve I was talking about the fine coat floating… the bulk it if dissolved fairly quickly.

 

[Saturn94]

Boric acid has good solubility in water. The powder is just a pain because it will float and get blown on the wind. I would suggest carefully dumping a scoop of powder into the pool water close to the surface and then brushing the slug of powder around. It should dissolve fairly quickly once it’s in the water.

And don’t forget to mix it with equal parts powdered sugar and leave it all around ant mounds and along exterior walls … great ant and cockroach poison.

Would the granular form we use for pools work well as ant/roach poison? If so, I might give your suggestion a try to help keep ants out of the house.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Would the granular form we use for pools work well as ant/roach poison? If so, I might give your suggestion a try to help keep ants out of the house.

It’s not as good because the ants don’t eat the boric acid, they eat the sugar. But in the process of eating the sugar, they get covered in boric acid dust which they drag back into the nest. They then get cleaned off by other other ants and in the process those ants invest the BA and die. With granular BA, the ants don’t get covered well; the fine BA dust is what does the trick.

Alternatively you make a syrup out of sugar and boric acid (plus water). That’s basically what Terro liquid disks are. The ants ingest the syrup and bring it back to the nest to feed to the queen. The BA kills the ants and queen. Once the queen is dead, the nest collapses.

 

[Patti]

It’s not as good because the ants don’t eat the boric acid, they eat the sugar. But in the process of eating the sugar, they get covered in boric acid dust which they drag back into the nest. They then get cleaned off by other other ants and in the process those ants invest the BA and die. With granular BA, the ants don’t get covered well; the fine BA dust is what does the trick.

Alternatively you make a syrup out of sugar and boric acid (plus water). That’s basically what Terro liquid disks are. The ants ingest the syrup and bring it back to the nest to feed to the queen. The BA kills the ants and queen. Once the queen is dead, the nest collapses.

While we’re on the subject…I’ve done the liquid version of this once before…put it in small coke bottles laying on their side. Dribbled a bit on the ground….and it was unbelievable how many ants went in it- and most of them died in there- I don’t know how many made it back to the Queen!
But I made the mixture again last summer using a different recipe as I couldn’t find the one I had originally used….and it didn’t work AT ALL. Can you tell me the ratio you use for both the Dry and Liquid formulas?
Boric Acid: powdered sugar: water
Boric Acid: powdered sugar
What about BORAX as opposed to Boric Acid?
Would you use the same ratios (Boric Acid is weaker than Borax, correct?)
I can use my mortar & pestle to make the Borax into a finer powder if I use the dry mixture, but with the liquid version it seemed to break down fine.)
Thanks for your help on this!
Patti

 

[JamesW]

100 milliliters of water add 100 grams of sugar and 5 grams of Borax or boric acid.

 

[JamesW]

They then get cleaned off by other other ants and in the process those ants invest the BA and die.

What type of investments do they make?

Do they get a good ROI?

Are the benefits POD since they're going to die?

My recommendation would be for an equal allocation of funds into cryptocurrency, NFTs and Metaverse land, preferably a plot near Snoop Dog or Paris Hilton.

 

[JamesW]

Ants pass food to one another through a process called trophallaxis.

This is how nutrients are passed from foraging ants to the larvae in a colony.