Fleas and Fish

Ok so... here's my problem. Weather got cold and all of a sudden the fleas decided they could live with the flea collars and made them selves at home... We're desperately trying to keep a handle on the situation but it's slowly getting worse. We're at the point where bombing the house might be our only option but the directions on those things say to remove any aquariums from the room! Oh how that is so much easier said than done...
Has anyone ever experienced a similar issue?
What worked for you?
Did you bomb? And if you did, did you remove your tank or seal it up good and tight some how? (Only thing i can think of is a serious saran wrap job... might have to call on my cousins skills if so...)
Thanks in advance and sorry i haven't been around lately!...

oh, here's what we have done...
Bathed dogs twice now
Treated the living room carpet twice with a powder which is where the dogs are... we typically don't let them back in the bedroom area but they've snuck past a couple times...
Treated both dogs with 2 types of down the back treatments... As well as a spot spray type option

The fleas on the dogs themselves are fairly minimal now, still there but nothing like when this first started.

 

i couple years ago i had a magor flee problem. i just put a towel/blanket over the tank and make sure there isnt any direct exposure to the toxic chemicals.

 

I feel your pain. i just dealt with this last year. I tried everything from the sprays and powders for the carpet and the over the counter cheap treatment for the animal ( in my case, cats). Nothing worked, it only slowed them down for a bit and then they would come back like nothing happene.

Heres what worked for me. I took the cat to the vet who said that i needed to use a certain brand that was quite expensive ( 65 for 3 months or something). So i got that and started treatment right away. This along with constant vacumming ( throw out whatever you vaccum because they will just crawl back out). Within a month or so all the fleas were gone and I havent had an issue since.

 

DO NOT BOMB!! I am a groomer...flea collars are about useless...they only stop the fleas if the fleas are on the collar...not the rest of the body...go to your vet or petco or petsmart and get either Frontline, Advantix or Advantage...get one that kills the eggs as well as adults! one treatment last a month and any fleas on the dog will die and any in the house that jump on the dog will die...trust me this is the best way to go about doing this...after they are gone keep any of the above on the dog(s) during the whole flea season (or all year round depending on how bad they are near you!)

EDIT: please do not get the cheap flea meds like hartz...it has been know to kill dogs in the past...trust me the good stuff is worth the extra money. if you go to the vet is about $15-$20 per tube depending on the dogs size...but if you go to a petstore they sell it in 3 or 6 month treatments and sometimes its on sale...seriously this is the best way to go when it comes to getting rid of fleas...take it from a flea profesional hahaha (i groomed a dog that was INFESTED today and i still feel ithcy just thinking about it...i know how bad fleas suck more then anyone hahaha)

 

ALSO: just because the fleas on the dogs arnt bad doesnt mean it will stay that way for long... you can kill all of the adults in the house but if you leave any eggs (in the couch/bed/carpet, along baseboards and bog beds, pretty much everywhere) then the eggs will just hatch and the whole cycle is started again...i could go on and on abotu these nasty bugs but seriously Frontline, Advantage or Advantix (1st 2 are my fav...havnt heard as many good remarks on advatix but it is known to work...usually lol) are the way to go...i explain this to at least 3 people a day at work and every single one that has come back has been flea free as long as the owner kept up with it!

 

^+1 if the fleas get to bad the may not efect the dog but they will bite u

 

+1... 110%!

Many years ago, I had a cat that came home with fleas. Long story short, I finally decided to bomb after 2 months of fighting the infestation. Covered my tank per the instructions... My tank still got wiped out, and a week later, the fleas were back.

 

Thanks all... wish we would have just done that from the beginning... would have saved a crap ton of money at this point...

 

haha yes fleas are never cheap...when i got my 1st chihuahua i didnt know anything about bad breeders and how nasty fleas are (give me a break i was 17 lol) well i got him form a bad breeder and he was covered in fleas and the 2nd day i had him he collapsed as soon as i walked in the door from work...had no clue what was going on so i rushed him to the emergency vet and turns out he was dehydrated and anemic from the fleas sucking him dry since the day he was born!! they gave him some IVs and some shots and $300 later he was good as new...all that over some fleas...and that didnt even include the money i had to spend the next day buying frontline haha...if you have big dogs i doubt the risk of anemia is as high but little 1/2 pound chihuahua pups dont have alot of blood and those blood suckers are greedy!!!

 

agree one hundred precent, frontline and advantage you can also find on ebay for about 10 a tube, i use the advantage. since starting using it years ago (when you could only get it from the vet) i have never had a flea problem in the house again.
i don't use the advantage year round just in the bad flea months or if i comb the cats and see flea dirt on them. i prefer the advantage over frontline, have never tried the other.