Here’s a table comparing the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator (introduced 2016) with the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech (introduced 2020). Both are manufactured by AC2T, Inc., based in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
| ERADICATOR | PRO TECH | |
|---|---|---|
| Active ingredient | sodium chloride | boric acid |
| Inactive ingredients | water, sucrose, yeast | water, sucrose, yeast |
| Hole size in cap | 11/64″ | 11/64″ |
| No. of tubes needed per acre | 2 | 4 |
| Cost per tube | ~$10 | ~$12 |
| Guarantee? | none | 30-day |
| Refills sold? | no | no |
| Efficacy claim | “kills up to 95% of mosquitoes” | “kills mosquitoes” |
| Efficacy duration claim | 90 days | 30 days |
For further information, please see my reviews for the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator and the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech.
Not sure why it worked so well for me. I have 3/4 of an acre and on both sides of me are livestock watering locations and one has a pool. My yard has numerous shrubs and trees. My first summer living in the house I couldn’t walk out of my door without being bitten numerous times and I mean dozens. After putting up the Mosquito Eradicators I first noticed a decline within a week or two. Then the rest of the summer was virtually mosquito free. No municipality sprays for mosquitoes in my area. Must be an anomaly and I got the only package of mosquito eradicator that worked. I am so lucky!
Same here! I live in a rural area , near woods, ponds, and a river. The day I hung my mosquito eradicate you were swarmed getting to your car. Two weeks later there were none! I was thrilled! How can that be junk?
But it only has salt inside so it cannot be responsible. I challenge you to use binoculars to spy on your Eradicators from afar. The company promises there will be clouds of mosquitoes fighting to get inside. Every single day. Let me know if you see any. Here’s my review of the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator.
It doesn’t work at all. Unfortunately, i just started my research on them bcuz of that, and the fact that they inboxed me about my comment on Facebook, and then blocked me. They are a terrible company. So sad they are allowed to continue robbing ppl.
Would you mind sending me their inbox comment? Also, did they hide your comment? Spartan Mosquito tends to do that for anything that might undermine their 5-star image of themselves. I.e., you and your friends will still be able to see the comment but rest of world cannot. Yes, amazing this company is allowed to get away with this. Please share my posts with your community if you can … so few people realize they are being scammed, and fewer warn their friends and family.
Could I gave get the recipe to refill my educators please
Per the box, it seems you could replicate with 0.809 teaspoons salt, 2.811 tablespoons sugar, and 1/40 teaspoons yeast. The exact proportions probably don’t matter a bit. More details in Yee et al 2021.
Same my Grandson could not go outside until I put these up around my house, we have a pond on both sides of us and cattle pens and a barn all right there and as long as he don’t leave the front yard he’s fine but walk out to the lots and he gets eat up.
You’ve been using the Spartan Mosquito Eradicator? Here’s my review. It’s snake oil.
I need the recipe for my eradicateors please
Per the box, it seems you could replicate with 0.809 teaspoons salt, 2.811 tablespoons sugar, and 1/40 teaspoons yeast. The exact proportions probably don’t matter a bit. More details in Yee et al 2021.
I agree. 1st year it wasn’t that great, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year we had zero mosquitoes inside our treated area. Fyi: 1.5 acres hung at 4 corners and in the middle away from the house. I’m going to say the reviewers didn’t use it as recommended. They expected 100% mosquito control with the 1st application.
The “reviewers didn’t use it as recommended” explanation is identical to why dowsing rods are supposed to be ineffective for some.
worked well for me also. Just now being inundated with mosquitos so I’m going out tomorrow to buy more. Expensive but worth the peace of sitting outside.
Please have a look at your tubes to see whether you see the promised swarm of mosquitoes. I would love a pic.
Just out of curiosity was the rest of that summer dry. I didnt see the part of the country you are located.
That’s fucking wild that they are selling that shite for so much. I’ve seen this brand for sale in Washington. Thanks for making such a thorough review!
What’s really wild is that the FTC and EPA *let* them sell this shite.
It works like a charm in South Texas where the state bird is a Mosquito.
As long as you put them up early in the season.
I’m not sure which one you’re using. Neither appear to work. Here’s my review of the Eradicator. Here’s my review of the Pro Tech. Neither version appears to even attract mosquitoes, a central claim of the company. I’m afraid you’ve been duped.
I’ve used the spartan educator for 2 years. I’ve always been skeptical, but we do see improvement right after we put them up. The plastic tubes are full of thousands of mosquitoes when I dump then out. I don’t get the same results when owm mixture, but I’ll try your recipe.
If you can, please post a photograph of the contents. I’m happy to try to identify the contents. Here’s a link to a typical scene from my yard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z457LUbuwz8&ab_channel=ColinPurrington. I’ve never found a mosquito in the mix. I’ve also never seen a mosquito in photographs others have posted of their Eradicator contents. Just usually vinegar flies, yellowjackets, etc.
Hey Colin – If I had to make a homemade lure for an air trap, what chemicals do you think would work best? I’ve heard a lot about lactic acid. What do you think?
I’m unsure of what an air trap is. Do you mean, what type of chemical *would* entice mosquitoes into tubes? CO2 is certainly important, but you’d need dry ice or compressed CO2 to achieve useful concentrations. There are also lures out there for various mosquito species. As you mention, lactic acid is one. Here’s a review.
Colin, I don’t quite get what you want from the people replying. They are simply telling you of their experiences. If they had favorable results, your main response seems to be, “you obviously didn’t see it correctly”. They are simply telling you what happened for them. And they worked for me as well. But I do appreciate you giving out the replacement mixture. I will try it.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Exactly! I’ve been using Spartans since they first came out. I’m one of those people that mosquitoes LOVE and bites get huge and stay extremely itchy for days. We deploy the tubes in March and use them until weather gets cold. Spartans work! These ARE NOT snake oil, I have NOT been scammed or duped. Facts are facts- and the fact is for 3 years we’ve been using Spartans and been able to enjoy our backyard without getting eaten up by mosquitoes. I follow the directions EXACTLY (it seems most consumers do not). Because of the Spartans, We no longer need to apply bug spray every time we go out in our back yard. These are a game changer.
Salt doesn’t kill mosquitoes. I’m just the messenger.
Okay folks. Here we go! There is a new product in town.
Colin, thanks for bringing people together in an effort to better eradicate these mosquitoes.
I purchased a Tougher Than Tom Mosquito killer kit. (https://tougherthantom.com/products/mosquito-tnt) It appears to be a knockoff of this Spartan product. I started to research *what* kills mosquitoes (salt, sugar, yeast?) and found this page.
I bought it because it’s pretty cheap to try and has great reviews. I’m certain the bad reviews are deleted. Isn’t that how it always works?
In any case, lots of people still say it works so I’ll try it out and will follow up with a review here in a couple weeks. They say it takes 1-2 weeks to fully work.
Tougher Than Tom’s Mosquito TNT is apparently fantastic at killing honey bees. But very much looking forward to seeing what you catch. If you want, you can send pics via my contact form. See my blurb on the contraption on my post, “Yeast-based mosquito control devices“.
Oh Dear! I just had a honeybee swarm take up occupancy in an empty hive box nearby to where I set up.
Oh, dear, indeed.
Do you happen to know how it actually kills bees? If it doesn’t kill mosquitos, by that logic it shouldn’t be toxic to bees either. I have seen instances where bees need bee ladders in order to climb out of sugar water instead of drown. If that is the risk, I should be able to quickly identify it by looking into the “trap”.
The bees drown. Terrible way to go, drowning in something you actually want (sugar water). Poor things.
According to their website, it says:
“Is Mosquito TNT safe around bees?
Yes! Mosquito TNT is bee-friendly and will not harm pollinators when used as directed.”
A demonstrably false claim.
I’m another one that saw a RADICAL change when I started using the older formula of Spartan. I bought it thinking it was another marketing ploy, but had tried so many things that I figured what would one more failure be? It was too expensive to hand-spray the yard each night before going outside.
I was SHOCKED at the difference after a week or two. I then thought it must be something that changed seasonally and there just were fewer mosquitos… but at my office 1 mile away they were still in full effect.
I didn’t have to use bug spray on myself, or spray the yard the rest of the summer… I started noticing them again and went and looked at the date on my tubes and it was over the 90 day window, so I ordered more. I put four up on the corners of a 1/2 acre city (corner) lot, with 3 water tanks. That’s twice what was recommended if you started early.
I told my sister about it who lives outside of town on 3 acres, and the mosquitos made going outside impossible… also worked great for her.
It’s not the “placebo” effect b/c the bites on your arms/legs are not imagined. Combined with the fact that I thought it was BS in the beginning, and was totally shocked that it did work.
I bought some at the end of the year for this year, and then a new set this spring. When I put the new ones out last week I noticed it says 30 days, and the old ones were 90 days. I looked closer and noticed the ingredients were different, and the name changed a tad… which is why I was looking for a comparison online.
Who knows why it doesn’t work for the “experts” and it does for some of us, but I’ll buy it as long as it works… even if it’s actually my superior mind-control of an ineffective product that keeps those pesky mosquitos away. NOW, I have to determine if I see a difference with the 30 day formula vs. the 90 day one.
I live in Florida on over an acre. I bought 4 of the Spartans with boric acid. At the beginning of summer I could not stand outside to talk with my neighbor without a dozen or more swarming me. Since I put the tubes in all corners of the backyard, the mosquito population has declined. We have had both hot weather and heavy rain this year. I do not think that I would buy the kind without the boric acid.
And you buy 2 more boxes every 30 days?
It blows my mind that you just come back with more comments negating what some of us have said. It worked. Period. Enjoy your crusade.
You’re using Spartan Mosquito Eradicators?
Yes. In a heavily wooded area that had so many mosquitoes that I couldn’t even cut my grass without swarms of them biting me. I have used them both before and since they changed the formula and am no longer bothered by them.
Sounds like your butt hurt from not coming up with it yourself. I live in Mississippi – the state bird is the Mosquito. I have seen them swarm the tubes. Looks to me that there are a lot of people that seemed to get lucky and get the only tubes to ever work.
If you can send me a pic of the mosquitoes swarming the tube I’d be grateful. Thanks very much for your comment.
We’ve been using the eradicators for the past 2 seasons. Same as everyone else, getting swarmed the moment we step outside. With two kids under 2, spray wasn’t really an option. We used the ThermaCELL, but that got expensive. Especially when I forgot it running outside.
The eradicator took a while to start working the first year but after a month or so it was near zero. I live a stones throw from a Texas lake so there are plenty of those massive mosquitoes around here. When changing the tubes out there is a general cloud of mosquitoes as though they are nesting in tree. All mosquitoes are also significantly smaller in size. I did check the container and it has only ants and fruit flies from what I can tell.
I just put up the Pro Tech and noticed the change in duration, which led me here. I know they work. Though it may be a Volkswagen type of thing, where they aren’t disclosing everything.
Any thoughts on the need to change every 30 days instead of 90, or need to use 2x as many tubes per acre?
I too had great luck with it for the first 2-3 years. Last year I unknowingly purchased the Pro-Tech version, assuming it was the same stuff and noticed that it didn’t work as well as the previous years. This year I got from Amazon and noticed it said 30 days replacement (not 90) and that made me mad… put mine up in March in Memphis, and I’m scratching my bites as I type this. So
disappointed!!! I am the ‘ Target Queen’for our local Tiger mosquitoes…I can’t go to the mailbox without getting several bites. No more ProTech for me… ♀️
Life before tiger mosquitoes was so much better.
I bought the original Eradicator that lasted 90 days and I did see a very noticeable improvement. Before putting 1 up I’d get 2 bites just walking the garbage out to the bin and back in the house. With the Spartan up, I can sit out for hours and maybe get 2 bites instead of the 20 I’d have before it.
But then the product changed and it just doesn’t work like before, I agree that this new version is just sugar water that does nothing.
I’m sorry I didn’t save the old tubes to make my own, but using 2 each season wasn’t an excessive cost. Now they want me to use one every month, which would be 5-7 each season with much less effectiveness? No way.
Would it work to just add some boric acid into their tubes? Would that make them as the original product was that actually worked and lasted for 90 days?
In my opinion nothing is going to make these tubes work. The main problem as I see it is that mosquitoes are not attracted to the tubes. So it doesn’t really matter what active agent is inside waiting for them. Sorry I don’t have better news. Thanks for your comment.
From what I remember of the original tubes, they didn’t work by killing the mosquitos, but rather by making them sterile so they couldn’t keep breeding. That would create the drop in mosquitos on the property. They’d only work though if the tubes were the only source of water, I always thought they were drawn to it more as a water source than any other reason. And I and my neighbors have no standing water around. I’m on a typical suburban-sized lot, so my neighbors on both sides got the benefits of less mosquitos with the original formula and they did comment on it often, it wasn’t just me.
The last 2 summers though I’ve been sitting outside with usually a small table fan blowing on me to help with keeping mosquitos away from me, and that worked. Working outside though is a different. I’m going to try adding boric acid and see what happens this season. I found 2 tubes from last summer, so I’ve got nothing to lose trying it for these last tubes. I won’t ever buy them again though.
Why are you so negative pouncing on people who the product helped & telling them that they are wrong & you are right. I hope to never stumble upon anything you have a hand in reviewing again. Get a life dude!
I haven’t seen any comments for 8 months. I got my new tubes from Amazon last week, and two of last year’s version from the hardware store. In the past, they always worked, just as people have described. I have them, so I’ll try them. If not, I’ll apply for the money and make my own. I value crusaders. However, your effort seems personal to some degree. But thanks to you, I now have to buy something that has been altered, that costs more, and whose frequency of recommended usage has tripled. I guess you’re pleased. For me, the real test is only this: Does it work for me?
If you are angry about the change in cost or efficacy of the Spartan Mosquito Pro Tech I would complain directly to the company. I don’t understand why they stopped producing the Eradicator given that most people seem to prefer it over the Pro Tech. Bad business decision. The smart move was to continue to make both. The Aion Mosquito Barrier, an identical tube with identical ingredients (sugar, yeast, table salt), will likely become the dominant version on the market this summer. And people will also probably just start adding their own sugar, yeast, and salt to the tubes rather than throwing them out.
I appreciate your research, logic, and reasoning on the efficacy of the Spartan mosquito eliminator. I really do. I kind of miss the image of mosquitoes exploding in flight, thanks to you.
I know correlation is not causation. Here’s the big but: I’ve used the Spartans for years, refilling them with homemade liquid using Spartan’s chemical formula. At about sunset in the summer, mosquitoes drove us indoors before the Spartan. With the Spartans strategically placed about the property (4 of ’em) we rarely see a mosquito. We have fresh water and salt marsh mosquitoes to combat. My scientific mind tells me the Spartan is hokum, which is why I refill the tubes and not buy more of them, but my anecdotal evidence tells me something is working. Now, about those #@*! no-see-ums.
What’s a logical man to do? It ain’t broke, so I ain’t fixing it. Heck, I might have found a use for IPAs.
I live on a rural property bordered by swamp and tidal brackish water. No spraying. I don’t use pesticides on the lawn or fields. We have brown bats around most summer evenings. Spring and late summer are normally wet with a dry stretch in mid summer. The only thing that’s changed in 20 years is hanging the Spartans, and the number of mosquitoes.
Interesting. Would you have any interest in taking pics of the Spartan Mosquito tubes to send to me? Would love to see whether the “mosquitoes will gather” claim made by the company is true for your DIY tubes. The company’s testing says confirms that the CO2 produced will not attract mosquitoes, but yours are DIY so I don’t know. Anyway, if you can provide photographs and mosquitoes are present, then you might be on to something. But my guess is that you have zero mosquitoes coming to, and going inside, your tubes. And that there is something unrelated causing the low number of mosquitoes. Also, do your neighbors spray pyrethroids? Lots of people are doing it themselves and using 10x the recommended amounts. People who nuke their yards also often hide that fact because they know they are killing all the insects, not just the mosquitoes.
Also, what are you adding to your tubes? Table salt or boric acid? The table salt will definitely do absolutely nothing to mosquitoes. And boric acid will only kill them if they go inside and ingest the fluid.
And just to confirm, you’re not part of the St. Leonard’s Shore area, right? They spray.
It’s telling that dozens of people are willing to take the time to vouch for this product, but not a single person is willing to post a photo of the contents of their Eradicator tube. My guess is that most of these people are just unwilling to admit or accept that they have been duped and thus would rather attack the messenger than the con-artists that sell this junk.
Yes, I think you’re correct about that. I’ve read a few research papers that suggest just that, that people would rather soak in boiling oil than admit, to themselves or publicly, that they’ve been scammed.