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How are you keeping beetles from eating holes in your plastic tanks and fuel lines?

13K views 53 replies 12 participants last post by  sledman8002002  
One of our gen fuel tanks must have 50 or so little holes in the side now. Not all are leakers of fuel.
The only repair is to plastic weld the holes with a soldering gun.
I have been thinking, is there an insecticide that could be sprayed on the tank?
Or maybe all the tanks need to be taken off the gens, then flushed and dried and stored inside.

It is an asian import the Camphor beetle. Camphor Shoot Borer (Cnestus mutilatus)

A serious eater of plastic gasoline tanks. They have also ruined most of my red plastic gas cans.

Our Polaris ATV, all the fuel leaked out of the gas tank, and looking at it the beetles had eaten holes into the rubber fuel line. The holes they make are slightly smaller than 1/8". Have not seen them attacking car gas tanks as I think the plastic is better quality and they cant smell the ethanol.
wow i would have guessed it was mice or vole's or another rodent...
soooo.
what is to stop them from eating on car plastics?
fuel tanks, injection lines, def lines etc....
almost every thing is some sort of plastic these days.....

a couple of questions...
those gasoline jugs had mold on the outside.... and looked old...
so do they eat on new plastics as well??


keep the plastics clean and free from trash...
or could you coat the outside of the plastics with oils grease or silicone?
a study on what they will not chew on would be good for sure!
 
so make a trap for the bugs with ethanol.
glass jar, steel lid.
holes in lid
maybe a bit of cotton inside.

hey will dawn dish soap kill the bugs?
soap and water mix in the jar...

it would be cool to do a controlled study on this...
you might seek out help from the collages in the area.
they love this kinda of stuff for the kids as projects!
 
how about making glass and metal top jar traps for them?
they do that for the construction bees here.

ethanol as bait (booze like vodka) and dawn with a bit of water to drown them.

bait traps on the edges of the property to draw them away from the garage etc.