471 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Update 6-20-2016
 

Well I left myself with one of the large colonies that was recovering, one of the newer, smaller colonies, and the huge colony in the glass vase. Now all three of those colonies have dying fungus gardens. None of them are adding any substrate to them anymore, and are slowing disposing of it all. I can see the usual redish-brown blobs of liquid on the fungus that you usually see as it dies. I really wish I knew why this happens. It's most likely not an environmental problem here, because the same thing has happened to many of the people who have bought colonies from me. For the same reason, it's probably not a substrate problem. I just don't know what it is. If I don't have any fungus left by the time they fly again this year, it's going to be extremely hard to get another colony going.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:08 PM.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, I just can't figure these things out.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:08 PM.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:08 PM.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:08 PM.

[dspdrew]

Update 6-26-2016
 

Good news: Two of the colonies have recovered. I'm pretty sure now that while there are obviously multiple things that can cause the fungus to die, and they're usually very difficult to pinpoint, this time it was clearly the heat. During the insane heatwave we had, the ant room got up to around 100 degrees F. This is obviously too hot for the fungus, and I confirmed that with Dr. Rebecca Clark.  She said the fungus should not get much hotter than 90 degrees F. She said she always kept hers between 85 and 89.

 

The huge colony living in the glass vase is doing great again, and all of their fungus is fuzzy and white between all the substrate particles.

 

The newer, smaller colony is doing well too. This is good because now I have easy access to some healthy fungus, unlike in the glass vase.

 

The third colony, which used to be a large colony before all of its fungus died off a couple months back does not seem to be recovering. I'll have to give them some healthy fungus again, and see if they recover.

[Gregory2455]

She said the fungus should not get much hotter than 90 degrees F. She said she always kept hers between 85 and 89.

Good to know... Too bad I read this a bit too late...

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:08 PM.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-4-2016
 

Now that the fungus has started to grow back in newer colony, I took some of it and gave it to the colony with no fungus. They all immediately started licking all over the the fungus and started tearing off little pieces of it. A little later I noticed they were sticking tiny pieces of it all over the lid. Hopefully they get their garden going again.

[dspdrew]

Update 7-6-2016
 

The recovering colony has fungus starting to grow all over the place now. It's amazing how fast they can get that stuff to grow.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:08 PM.

[Osimmilimus]

Can we see more pictures of this colony?

[Canadian anter]

Update plox

[EstuaryAnts]

Update???

[dspdrew]

Update 7-28-2016
 

The large colony in the giant glass vase setup is still doing fine. They have a huge stash of substrate being kept in the very top chambers. For some reason most of the fungus is turning an orange color. It doesn't look like it's dying, and the ants are still taking care of it though. They aren't taking any dead fungus out and placing it in the trash like they do when it starts dying, so I don't know what is going on with it. Also for the last week, mainly since I started noticing the fungus turning orange, they hardly come out of the nest at all. Usually when the hot lights turn off, they are just swarming everywhere outside the nest, but not now. Maybe they have so much substrate saved up in the nest, they don't need to come out. Who knows... I also can't seem to fine any brood anywhere, so I hope the queen's okay.

 

The recovering colony is doing great. Their fungus garden is still growing larger and larger every day.

 

The young colony is still doing great too, with their fungus garden continuing to grow back after I keep taking pieces of it to save other colonies.

[dspdrew]

Update 9-5-2016
 
Good news and bad news. I'll start with the bad and end with the good.
 
My large colony in the glass vase is pretty much dead now. Almost all their fungus has died, and most of the colony too.
 

 

 

 

 
 
I really don't know what the problem is. There is only one tiny spot left where the fungus is still growing, but it doesn't look healthy at all.
 

 
 
There are piles and piles of dead ants in the bottom chambers and some of them are starting to grow foreign fungus.
 

 

 
 
I took a chunk of donor fungus and put it in one of my plastic chambers with a water tank on top of the watering tube in the out world. I'm waiting to see if one of the workers will end up finding it. I'm curious to see what they will do, and if they move into it, I'm curious to see if the queen is even alive still.
 

 

 
 
As for the younger colony I was getting donor fungus from, their fungus started to die, and then not too long ago I found the queen dead.
 
Luckily the colony in the 8-chamber formicarium that used to be my largest, is still recovering and still has some healthy fungus.
 
I was passing through a large desert wash about 20 miles west of Lake Havasu, Arizona two weeks ago, and found a few Acromyrmex founding chambers from an earlier flight. I decided to stop there again that night on my way home to see if I might find a few of them out foraging. Sure enough, after finding a few and digging a few up, I brought home eight new queens. I gave each of these queens some donor fungus from the younger colony with the dying fungus just to see if there was really something wrong with the fungus, or if the problem could be more related to the colony itself.
 
A week later, some storms passed through that same area again, so I headed back out. I stayed the night out there and sure enough, the next morning around 9:00 AM, Acromyrmex started flying. There were tons of them, so I came home with plenty queens this time. I gave them all small pieces of donor fungus from my one remaining healthy colony.
 

 
 
What's funny is this time about half of the queens spit out their fungus pellet. I figured I would wait and see if any of them would grow into a fungus garden, but just like before, they all got tangled up in the cotton of the test tube and eventually destroyed.

[Foogoo]

What's funny is this time about half of the queens spit out their fungus pellet. I figured I would wait and see if any of them would grow into a fungus garden, but just like before, they all got tangled up in the cotton of the test tube and eventually destroyed.

 

Did you not use your glove-finger-cotton-protector? Or did they still get tangled up?

[dspdrew]

 

What's funny is this time about half of the queens spit out their fungus pellet. I figured I would wait and see if any of them would grow into a fungus garden, but just like before, they all got tangled up in the cotton of the test tube and eventually destroyed.

 

Did you not use your glove-finger-cotton-protector? Or did they still get tangled up?

 

 

Hey someone's paying attention haha. I was wondering if anyone was going to ask me about that. I ran out of them, and didn't feel like making more. I wasn't planning on trying to raise their fungus from the pellet, so I didn't really care. At least I'm completely sure now that it is the cotton that destroys the fungus pellet.

[dspdrew]

Update 10-22-2016
 

These are doing horribly this year. I had so many queens die, that I drove back out to the desert and picked up another twenty. I had about about six colonies with nanitics, but about four of those just lost their queens. I replaced those queens with some that had no workers yet. When the colonies are this small, the foreign queens and workers always get along just fine. I now have about fifteen queens left. On top of all this, the colony I was borrowing fungus from looks like it's dying again.