372 replies to this topic

[Serafine]

Well, I bought it as a finished product, so I can't really say much about it.

https://www.antstore...1000g-5303.html

 

It's essentially just loam/clay powder mix with red sand.

Applying it can be a bit difficult (it tends to stick on the brush) but once it has dried it becomes as hard as concrete and stays where it is (it can however be softened up again by applying water to it). It's the same stuff I used as base layer for the outworld.

It can actually be used as a digging medium for nests but it's weight is not to be underestimated. The whole base layer of the outworld (which is mostly just 0.5cm thick) weights about 2kg.

 

Any you have to be careful with watering the nest because it is an extremely good water conductor - it can really spread moisture through the entire nest which is perfect for ants like Myrmica sp but not so much for my Camponotus.

Edited by Serafine, April 14 2017 - 12:21 AM.

[Serafine]

 

 

 

Looks like most of the pupae are back in the rear chamber. I'm actually not sure if there's one or two more ants (the sizes somehow don't seem to fit, now 3 of them seem to look big) but it's hard to tell as some of them like to hide behind the cotton and inside the entrance.

 

 

 

I've been out over the weekend and my room got a bit cold so today I decided to heat the setup a bit. My intention was to use a heat lamp to get the temperature inside the terrarium to ~28°C but then I forgot for it for about an hour and the temperature got up to ~31°C.

The ants... did this:

 

They piled all the pupae inside at the entrance straw and a worker came out to take a sunbath. Later two of them walked around outside and inspected the area around the nest. They also cleaned out the entrance and pushed out all the debris.

 

The pupae were put back inside after I removed the heat lamp but I'm sure they liked it, so I'm gonna try to do this once per day now, if possible. It will hopefully help to speed up their development a bit, they're really on the slow side right now, even for Camponotus.

Edited by Serafine, April 17 2017 - 1:41 PM.

[Serafine]

They're still sitting on their large pile of pupae.


And there's a batch of new eggs (under the queen).

[Serafine]

The ants are starting to discover their surroundings. The green area is the area that has been scouted (basically the entire setup with the exception of the attached nest), the red area (the tent and the glass above the nest) was visited most frequently.
Apparently the scouting worker prefers to walk on the paper and the vertical glass wall over working on the flat ground.

 

 

There's now two workers foraging and they even come out during the day if it is quite shady. One of them is working on a piece of meat fly larva which was met with much enthusiasm (other than the last spider bits of which only one got taken in). They also spent much time making tiny sand pebbles to reinforce the wall at their nest entrance.


 

 

The colony is doing well, you can see a lot of new larvae.I have no idea how many they are, I'd guess 8-10 workers, and about the same amount of pupae and larvae each.

 

Edited by Serafine, April 29 2017 - 5:24 PM.

[Serafine]

The family keeps growing! In fact Lazy Tube looks quite busy now.

 

 

 

 

That yellow pebble is btw a second piece dried tree sap (the first one is at the entrance). One of the nanitics has outdone herself to get it into the nest (would have been easier if she hadn't tried to lift it over the side of the entrance).

 

They have been eating several meat fly pupae and larva bits over the weekend and yesterday I gave them a few tiny bits of ham which they seemed to like a lot as well.

 

All in all they're still fairly inactive with only two workers coming out when it's dark or at least very shady, but they have a good amount of brood (including eggs), so they're doing well.

[Serafine]

Look at that pile of brood!

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I replaced the small feeder with a new one and seen them drinking from it as they are intended to do (and not just licking what was leaking out of the feeder due to me putting a heat lamp directly above it). It was quite hilarious, the ant was upside down and only the gaster looked out of the opening.

 

Also the ants (well, the two of them who actually do come out) have become quite agile and sporty. They're really fast and they can make jumps of about their own body length, both forwards and backwards (the flinch when a worker encountered the Kiwi was quite impressive, they really didn't like that kind of fruit).

 

Two days ago I caught a large spider in the floor and a worker has been busy dismantling it ever since (but only during night). Once there's a dead spider available all other foods become obsolete. There also was a smaller spider of the same species I added to the feeding dish and it was engaged with a very impressive jump attack, grabbed and immediately dragged into the nest. They really love spiders.

Edited by Serafine, May 9 2017 - 2:40 AM.

[Serafine]

I have successfully managed to overfeed my ants! They haven't gone out at all for 3 days, but then yesterday they came for breakfast (which is unusual because usually they forage at night when it goes dark). It also may have something to do with the fact that I haven't heated them a lot in that time (the basin was mostly around 22°C so probably the brood developed a bit slower).
 
Here they are working on a big spider.


This is a bit older but you can see how they drink from the byFormica feeders there. Sometimes they crawl in so far that only the gaster sticks out which looks quite funny.



They're most likely 15 workers now, though I can't be entirely sure (there's 13 on the picture and 2 where out foraging at that time but there's always the chance that some ants/brood are hiding in the entrance area).
Activity is still rather low, two nanitics do all the foraging and a minor worker sometimes comes out to drink sugars but then they're really well-fed so why should they go out more if there's no need.

Edited by Serafine, May 15 2017 - 11:38 PM.

[CozmoDog]

This journal is one of my favorites! I hope my Camponotus go aswell as yours.

[Serafine]

Okay, so I forgot to mention that a few days before my last post I tried to feed them life food. There was a small harvestmen suddenly hanging from the ceiling right in front of my face and I smashed it immediately.
It wasn't instantly dead but it didn't look good, basically it just stumbled around a bit probably dying, so I though I'd do a little experiment and put into my ant feeding dish.
 
Well... it didn't go exactly well...

 
The ant encountered the harvestman, realized it was still moving and went into full panic mode, running around aimlessly for about a minute (same for the arachnid) before returning to the nest. Later that night the harvestman died but the ants didn't eat it. Instead the worker carried it into a far edge of the outworld and dumped it there. I guess she was suspicious it might scare her again
 
 
 
Yesterday they got a big spider (caught it in the floor, it was dragged into the nest immediately) and a piece of ostrich steak they really seemed to enjoy (although they were mostly just licking off the fluids but that's okay).

 

 
 
 
The colony is still growing well, they get about 2-4 new workers per week. There's at least two pupae ready to eclose at the bottom left edge of the pile. They're a bit darker than the others because these ants eclose fully colored and hardened, I've never seen a brighter callow even when looking daily (this seems to be a common thing for european Camponotus species, I've seen journals where C. ligniperda does the same).



 

 
 
 
There also must be a pile of eggs somewhere as can be seen on this picture shot two days ago but I can't find them on today's shots. They're probably stored in the entrance area as the quite recognizable media worker and 3-4 others seem to be missing as well.

Edited by Serafine, May 24 2017 - 3:14 PM.

[Antking117]

Wow, very cool journal. Very informative and interactive! You really put their personality into the journal! Very cool, thank you for the updates!

[Serafine]

OMG!!! I FLOODED MY OUTWORLD!
(press F to pay respect to Mikey's clickbaity video titles)

Well, sort of.
I wanted to offer them a new test tube but the tube leaked and the entire water reservoir (30x200mm tube) ran into the arena. Took two days of heatlamping to get humidity down to normal (from 70% to 45%). The ants didn't care.
Tried again and this time it didn't leak. They found it, one worker was in there already but I don't expect them to move anytime soon, the water in their current tube should still be enough for about 1-2 months.




Two days ago one of the workers spazzed out. Regarding the size it probably was one of the nanitics - she rain around then started to clean herself extensively to the point where she fell over and rolled around. I was actually getting worried she might have mites so I made a close-up of the colony but there's no mites anywhere.
I haven't seen that behavior since so I guess she might just have had a bad day. Though I wouldn't be surprised if some of the nanitics started to die soon, most of them are probably almost a year old.

They mostly come out in pairs now, even if it's not really dark.
Today actually one of them came out while the heat lamp was on, something that never has happened before. In bright daylight they look less orange than on the tube pictures but are more of a deep blood red. They're really pretty.
 
They got a HUGE spider I managed to catch outside only for them to ignore it entirely for two days until I dripped some water on it. Smaller spiders are still dragged into the nest immediately while most other food isn't really getting a lot of attention. For the last two days they've mostly been busy licking off the mess that's on the feeding dishes.
Oh, and my stupid ants have somehow managed to get sand INSIDE the Galileo feeders (even up into the bottles). They're a pain to unscrew now.




I think more ants have hatched but there's no way to be sure because since it got warmer they permanently keep their pupae inside the straw, together with some of the workers. That media worker is still quite a monstrosity compared to the other ones though (not sure if there's a second media but I think I have seen a larger pupa).

Edited by Serafine, May 27 2017 - 4:19 AM.

[Antking117]

I just can not wait to have my own colony..

[Serafine]

Well, I didn't plan to make an update this soon but here's (a small) one anyway.
 
Worker drinking maple syrup.




Now that I'm not actively heating them anymore (the room is ~27°C anyway) they piled the pupae back into the rear chamber.
Just look at how fat they are. The two foraging workers are literally the only two ants in the colony that do not look like repletes.

Edited by Serafine, May 30 2017 - 5:15 AM.

[Serafine]

The ants are getting more hungry. I've even seen one of them out during the afternoon, scouting the area for food.
Their diet pretty much comes down to meet fly pupae and spiders, meat fly pupae get processed where they are found while spiders are taken into the tube to never be seen again (except for a few legs). Everything else is left untouched.


The reason why they are hoarding food is probably the emergence of a few more workers - they're almost 20 now (probably 17 or 18, it's really impossible to tell).
And there's still pupae piled inside the straw as can be seen vaguely, so more workers will arrive soon.


Also, MORE EGGS! They have two egg batches now.


Finally, I've added a bit more stuff to their outworld for them to explore.

Edited by Serafine, June 3 2017 - 10:20 AM.

[Antking117]

Very cool! Not to crowded, and not to open; just right. Where do you get your meat fly pupae?

[Serafine]

I got them from a local pet shop. Actually they were pretty cheap because the package said meat fly larvae

[Antking117]

I got them from a local pet shop. Actually they were pretty cheap because the package said meat fly larvae

Good to know! Thank you!

[Antking117]

Update?

[Serafine]

Update!


Lots of ants hatched during the last days. I'm pretty sure it isn't over yet and there's still pupae left but I cannot see them (they're inside the straw).
It's hard to estimate how many there are now but I think 30-35 workers is a pretty accurate guess (with a rough estimate of 5-15 remaining pupae).




 

There's also new big media worker but it's more of an overgrown minor as it lacks the flatter broader head of the other media. No major larvae in sight yet but then there's two big egg batches and a few small larvae. Interestingly they don't seem to pile up the larvae anymore but leave them just scattered across the floor. I guess there's no more need to pile as at some point a worker is bound to stumble over each of them.




They just ate a bit from a roach abdomen piece (still never more than two workers outside) and tomorrow I'm getting dead drone larvae from a friend who is keeping bees.

Finally my new 20x10 baby outworld arrived. It's getting a place more in the sun than the regular main arena so that at some point they can use it to store their pupae there (or use it as a waste dump, whatever they like best). Not sure how to decorate it as it's tiny size severely limits decoration options.
Probably I'll put one of these shrimp tubes inside and a few snail shells.

Edited by Serafine, June 11 2017 - 2:54 PM.

[Antking117]

Clean outworld, make a city xD they can be the monsters invading