PasoFish89
Active Member
Just posting this to put another success story out there for others reference when prepping to tent the house. I recently had to have the house tented for termites. I got some mixed information on the water solubility of vikane and the advice of the fumigator was to remove the fish and coral. I found some other threads with varying degrees of preparation.
The route I chose to go was to remove the canopy from the aquarium and use 6 mil plastic and duct tape to seal off the display. I used the same method to carefully seal off the sump and the RODI reservoir.
Once these were sealed off I poked a small hole in the plastic over the display and the sump and inserted airlines. I ran airlines from the outside of the home and into the sealed off tank and sump to provide positive pressure inside the sealed off system to keep the vikane out, which supposedly could penetrate the plastic and duct tape.
In addition to removing the lights and the kalk doser, I also hooked up a chiller. It was 100-105 each day the tent was up and the HVAC could not be running. I am unsure what temps the inside of the house reached, however the chiller kept the tank at 80 degrees without issue.
72 hours with this set up and my tank actually looked better when it was done. The urchins were able to put a big dent in my current hair algae without the lights on. Zero loss of livestock or coral to report.
I feel like I played it safe, however I still have my doubts on whether it was even necessary. The disclaimers and waivers seem to all be based in the CYA world, not what the data supports. All the other data the fumigator provided said that because the vikane is not water soluble, pet water left in the house is safe to consume and ice in the freezers was also safe for human consumption.
Obviously, I was not willing to take the risk going the do nothing route, and the duct tape and plastic route was not a huge deal to put in place.
So for anyone facing a fumigation, in MY experience, sealing it off and using positive pressure ventilation was fine for 72 hours.
The route I chose to go was to remove the canopy from the aquarium and use 6 mil plastic and duct tape to seal off the display. I used the same method to carefully seal off the sump and the RODI reservoir.
Once these were sealed off I poked a small hole in the plastic over the display and the sump and inserted airlines. I ran airlines from the outside of the home and into the sealed off tank and sump to provide positive pressure inside the sealed off system to keep the vikane out, which supposedly could penetrate the plastic and duct tape.
In addition to removing the lights and the kalk doser, I also hooked up a chiller. It was 100-105 each day the tent was up and the HVAC could not be running. I am unsure what temps the inside of the house reached, however the chiller kept the tank at 80 degrees without issue.
72 hours with this set up and my tank actually looked better when it was done. The urchins were able to put a big dent in my current hair algae without the lights on. Zero loss of livestock or coral to report.
I feel like I played it safe, however I still have my doubts on whether it was even necessary. The disclaimers and waivers seem to all be based in the CYA world, not what the data supports. All the other data the fumigator provided said that because the vikane is not water soluble, pet water left in the house is safe to consume and ice in the freezers was also safe for human consumption.
Obviously, I was not willing to take the risk going the do nothing route, and the duct tape and plastic route was not a huge deal to put in place.
So for anyone facing a fumigation, in MY experience, sealing it off and using positive pressure ventilation was fine for 72 hours.
