108 replies to this topic

[Kalidas]

Yeah I'm hoping all goes well.

I'm just trying to figure out when would be a good time to cut off a piece of the fungus and try to donate it to the other Queens. The other two are fungusless and I would like to see if they are able to establish a fledgling nursery just like my main girl is right now

Edited by Kalidas, November 14 2018 - 8:26 AM.

[Kalidas]

So this isn't quite an update as much as it's a question of how to deal with something.

I've been mostly trying to give the queens space the last couple days. Only really checking on the one queen to make sure her fungus is doing fine and clearing old substrate as needed. The fungus IS getting pretty big now and that's a plus, all her eggs are now clumped up together on the fungus too.

The thing I noticed this morning as I was switching out old oatmeal and cornflakes with new ones was mold in the test tube. A small bit of black on one end of the water logged cotton. I am not too sure what to do about this. Should I remove the fungus and queen and replace the cotton? Just get in there with tweezers and remove the affected bit? Or ignore it? I am worried it could hurt the fungus, eggs, or even the queen. But I also fear moving the fungus could be equally damaging.

Edited by Kalidas, November 18 2018 - 2:07 PM.

[Kalidas]

Wow been a while since I last updated. Let's see where we are at with the lovely ladies.


She lumped all her eggs into one large cluster. Looks like the amount of eggs increased greatly.



She's so fuzzy!



So many eggs it's hard to count them all.

Okay these pictures were taken last week, these new ones I'm posting I took last night... I won't lie the picture quality of these one's is bad... Sorry. I need to get a better device to photograph with... My phone just isn't cutting it.



It's hard to see but to the right of the main egg cluster are more eggs hiding under that like fungus outcropping. The main cluster of eggs actually have small larvae hding in there. Sadly couldn't get good pictures of them.



This picture is just terrible... Sorry. It shows the other fungus garden I started with one of the other Queens. I clipped a piece off of the main fungus and added a tiny piece no larger then the queens head and here it is. It's about half the size of half her body so it's doing good. Oddly something weird happened and she had two little fungus gardens going in her test tube for some reason. I think she split her one in half and was tending to both. Either way I took the second one and gave it to the last queen.



Here it is. She took it and put it on the cotton ball... That worries me a bit. I hope it wasn't a mistake on her part to do that. But as of last night all three Queens had fungus, and one is on her way to establishing a growing colony. I am just hoping I can get one colony going but if I end up with three some how I don't know what I will do... My GF said I can have ONE ant colony and that's it... So maybe sell the other two?

Edited by Kalidas, November 26 2018 - 11:59 AM.

[ANTdrew]

I’m really excited for your colony! My two cents is to keep all three colonies because you never know what will happen. Does she even check on them? If not, I say just keep doing your thing and don’t talk about them.

[Kalidas]

I’m really excited for your colony! My two cents is to keep all three colonies because you never know what will happen. Does she even check on them? If not, I say just keep doing your thing and don’t talk about them.

That is a concern I have what if the main one I have appears to be doing well and then a year down the line randomly die(like what happened to Drew) and the other two could have replaced them. But once they get larger I'm not sure how I would hide them. Esspecialy with what I want to do. In my post about my formicarium design idea I talk about how I want to use multiple single chamber firebrick formicariums connected via tubing to a large aquarium outworld. Not sure how I could do that with three colonies and she not know lol. Heck I haven't even talked to her about that idea. I'm thinking she thinks the ants can just stay in the tiny mini closet next to our staircase case (and sure they could for a while probably) but sooner or later they will probably outgrow that. That will be a tough conversation lol

[AntsCalifornia]

If its only one colony, it will probably not outgrow a closet unless it is shoe box size, and you should keep all three for a while, because colonies have a lot of random die offs, especially this species. I would say wait a year before deciding to sell any. This is my opinion on your situation.

[Kalidas]

Not sure if you saw the pictures in the album I made (probably not I may just post them here) but it's tiny. Not show box size per see but even the 4 Tupperware containers and two heat pads take up half the "closet". It's not really big at all. Would be VERY hard to try and accommodate multiple outworld and even small formicariums. I know that's probably many months away, and who knows maybe I'm trying to expand too much too soon...

[Kalidas]

So this update includes pictures from two different days that were about 2 days apart from one another





A nice size comparison. I remember when her fungus was smaller then her, now it's twice her size


On the left larvae, on the right the other eggs. It's funny watching her separate them.


Remember the queen who lost her fungus to my stupid heat pad mistake? Here she is with fungus again and what looks like an egg.


And this queen never even had fungus. It's more cornflake then fungus.

So some things I have noticed. All my girls love cornflakes on their fungus for some strange reason, and I have to change them out often. Once the cornflakes get wet and soggy they won't touch them. Maybe the humidity it actually too high in the Tupperware containers?

Next set of pictures a couple days later



Queen numerous dos. Glad to see losing her first fungi garden hasn't discouraged her.


Queen number 3. As you can tell she adds a LOT of substrate to her fungus.


First Queens fungus is back to being a ball of white fluff. She won't be making an appearance in these pictures, as I was taking them she was foraging and I didn't want to bother her.


Larvae actually got a little bigger. There's one in front and a few more in the back left.


It's not very easy to tell but the eggs are still on the right. There's about 5 and 3... Maybe 4 larvae, it's kinda hard to count it all she keeps everything so close together.

An observation I have made about her. She seems to have patterns about how and when she does things. If I notice a lot of substrate and her foraging there generally won't be new eggs and the brood will stay relatively untouched. When I notice she has stopped adding substrate (which used to worry me) and just stays in the test tube the entire time not exploring and just hangs out by the fungus I will see new eggs and all her brood will be shifted around to new areas. It's as if she only does one thing at a time. Either caring for the young or growing the fungus. I wonder if most leaf cutter Queens are like this in the early stages. It makes sense survival wise.

Edited by Kalidas, November 30 2018 - 5:29 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Heavenly king, consoler, spirit of truth, present in all places and filling all things, a treasury of blessing and the giver of life, please bless Kalidas’ queens. May their daughters be the sisters of many queens! Amen

[Kalidas]

Heavenly king, consoler, spirit of truth, present in all places and filling all things, a treasury of blessing and the giver of life, please bless Kalidas’ queens. May their daughters be the sisters of many queens! Amen

Aww thanks, that's nice of you.

[ANTdrew]

Yes, I am part of the 00000.0001% that prays for ants. I’m praying for your queens because I know how much they mean to you.

[Kalidas]

Yes, I am part of the 00000.0001% that prays for ants. I’m praying for your queens because I know how much they mean to you.

I was considering doing that myself, just my way. See I'm a Hindu(Kalidas is actually a Hindu name that means "servent of Kali") and we do something called Prasad. It's where you offer food to the deity to be blessed and then eat it. Some Hindus offer up their whole weekly groceries (I don't). I was considering doing that with their substrate. Add it to my alter have it blessed by the deities that are present and then give said blessed "food" to the girls.

Awww I appreciate it, they do mean a lot to me actually

Edited by Kalidas, November 30 2018 - 8:15 PM.

[MegaMyrmex]

Lookat all dat fluff! Man, those fungus gardens are getting bigger! I still find it sort of hilarious with the queen’s fungus on her back, I believe it’s called actinomyces and acts as an antibacterial.

[Kalidas]

Lookat all dat fluff! Man, those fungus gardens are getting bigger! I still find it sort of hilarious with the queen’s fungus on her back, I believe it’s called actinomyces and acts as an antibacterial.

Oh yeah she's got like a giant white afro going on

[dspdrew]

Those little fungus gardens are looking healthy. Corn flakes are always a good choice from what I have seen and heard, even though I haven't been using any myself. I find that fish pellets are the most popular among my colonies right now. I know they have a lot of nutrients. I also see that fish food that comes in flakes seems to end up in their trash pile along with all the dead fungus, so don't both trying that.

 

I saw you talking about putting these in a fire brick formicarium. If you do this, make sure the entire thing is enclosed in something hard like plastic or glass, because they will chew right through that fire brick. These chew through the hardest materials of any ants I've ever kept. Given enough time, I have even seen them chew through the PETG plastic C-clips I use to hold my formicariums together. PETG by the way, is the same plastic used to make water bottles. It's very strong.

[ANTdrew]

Dang! Definitely fortify it then. They’ll chew through firebrick in no time. Can they chew through a grout layer, DSPREW?

[Kalidas]

Those little fungus gardens are looking healthy. Corn flakes are always a good choice from what I have seen and heard, even though I haven't been using any myself. I find that fish pellets are the most popular among my colonies right now. I know they have a lot of nutrients. I also see that fish food that comes in flakes seems to end up in their trash pile along with all the dead fungus, so don't both trying that.

I saw you talking about putting these in a fire brick formicarium. If you do this, make sure the entire thing is enclosed in something hard like plastic or glass, because they will chew right through that fire brick. These chew through the hardest materials of any ants I've ever kept. Given enough time, I have even seen them chew through the PETG plastic C-clips I use to hold my formicariums together. PETG by the way, is the same plastic used to make water bottles. It's very strong.

Yeah I have seen you talk about fish pellets... I wonder why they like them so much? I should try and get some. Yeah it's funny though I have rose petals and leaves from the backyard. Heck I even added blackberry bush leaf and flowers(apparently that's another popular choice) nope they love cornflakes. To the point I may stop giving them rose and just use the corn flakes

Oh no... Thanks for that info that is good to know. I mean I was going to try and put them in a warm bath container type thing so if they did chew through they would probably just end up in water... But I don't want a bunch of dead drowning ants! This really puts a wrench in my idea,aybe the plastic containers style formicarium (like what you use) is best? I really just wanted to try and mimic their natural habitat as best as I could. But I also can't risk a mass escape I was already told by my grandmother and GF that if they escaped they would take bug spray ho straight to the nest and kill them all. And already as it is I was told I can have one colony(the GF doesn't want me having a bunch of colonies, she doesn't like the one)

Again thanks for the info it's good to know that now and not when an emergency happens.

Edited by Kalidas, December 1 2018 - 8:08 AM.

[ANTdrew]

Damn - that’s too harsh!
My idea with firebrick was to make a mold a bit bigger than the firebrick and back fill it to form an impenetrable layer.

[Kalidas]

Damn - that’s too harsh!
My idea with firebrick was to make a mold a bit bigger than the firebrick and back fill it to form an impenetrable layer.

Oh... How would that work? What would the mold be made of?

[ANTdrew]

I’m thinking a plastic box slightly bigger than the firebrick.