11 replies to this topic

[CoolColJ]

Say goodbye to moldy cotton

 

Edited by CoolColJ, June 8 2018 - 5:57 PM.

[AntsAreUs]

Did you just drill a hole in both tubes and insert tubing through it? With cotton stuffed in the tubing.

[CoolColJ]

Did you just drill a hole in both tubes and insert tubing through it? With cotton stuffed in the tubing.

 

 

Not my mod, but it appears to be so.

 

You could probably skip the tubing and just drill a hole in both, put cotton through the hole joining both tubes together and fill the bottom tube to hydrate.

or just replace the bottom tube with a small container and fill that

Edited by CoolColJ, June 8 2018 - 6:18 PM.

[TennesseeAnts]

I like this mod! Lots more growing room for the colony! And no more strangled brood!

[T.C.]

It's a neat idea. I use glass tubes so i would have to get plastic ones, but I might try this.

[AntsAreUs]

Maybe you can drill a second hole further to the entrance and do the same thing except with sugar water. Then you will have a holy setup.

Edited by AntsAreUs, June 8 2018 - 8:30 PM.

[CoolColJ]

I can see this idea being used in many ways to add refillable hydration to other nest types like petri dishes and small containers.

 

ie drill a hole in the container, and plastic test tube, join together, add water into test tube

 

 

Anyway I have a lot of 16mm x100m plastic test tubes around, which I normally use as outworld water feeders.

Will try something out

Edited by CoolColJ, June 8 2018 - 8:39 PM.

[CoolColJ]

personally, I want to do this to a petri dish

Edited by CoolColJ, June 17 2018 - 6:45 AM.

[CoolColJ]

I saw this pic in a Chinese anting forum.
Pretty cool, a tube within a tube.




Cutting the end off a test tube and butting another one against it, would allow for water to be topped up and moldy cotton to be swapped etc fairly easily

Edited by CoolColJ, June 23 2018 - 12:49 AM.

[CoolColJ]

My test tube mod
Hole drilled at base of two 16mm plastic test tubes, vinyl tubing inserted connecting both. Used step drill bit to do the drilling
Tighter on water tube side, but hot glue should be better.
Cotton wool plugging the tube, and over hanging into the water tube side to wick water.
 
Should greatly reduce mold build up, and you can pull it out to refill the water.
Also easier to kick ants out if needed....
 
click to enlarge

 

Edited by CoolColJ, June 23 2018 - 8:07 PM.

[CoolColJ]

Had a look at my two Pheidole sp., light red head, dark red body, 6-7mm queens in my custom cotton wool chamber test tube setups.
And one of the queen's cotton has a lot of mold on it for some reason....

So I moved her to my new test tube mod setup above.
I also added a styrofoam chamber wall with entrance to it like this vid



Let's see how it goes


These girls back in my cotton chamber setup

Edited by CoolColJ, June 25 2018 - 12:46 AM.

[CoolColJ]

This queen in this test tube mod has 6 eggs now, started laying a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue. Much less than the other queen of the same species, right beside her.
Cotton is nicely mold free for 5 weeks

click to enlarge

Edited by CoolColJ, August 4 2018 - 11:31 PM.