471 replies to this topic

[Gregory2455]

Well connecting the two test tubes with a vinyl tubing that has a hole in it to still allow foraging could make the path to the other test tube easier for them to take and maybe convince them it is part of the nest.

[dspdrew]

Update 12-9-2014
 
I sold two more colonies, so I'm down to eight now. All colonies have workers now, with the largest colonies having over 20. The reject queen now has two boost workers that do seem to be taking care of her fungus finally.
 
The original, and what was the largest colony is not doing so good. This is the one I have had out on the webcam. Its fungus garden wasn't looking too healthy, so after failed attempts at getting them to start a new garden in a new larger test tube, I made a little nest that I figured would accommodate their needs.
 

 
 
After transplanting the colony into this thing, the workers started acting strange. They just kind of stood around a lot, which is not normal for them. After about a day, I started finding some of them dead, and once that number reached about 10, I quickly moved them back into a test tube (a larger one this time). Since then I have moved them back into the cabinet, and took out a more healthy colony to put on the webcam. I have no idea what could have caused the deaths. The only thing it could possibly be is the solvent used when welding plastic. Even though it evaporates extremely quick, there was one area that could have possibly still had some solvent deeper inside the plastic. Either way, I designed a whole new formicarium for these guys, which is based on the design used by Dr. Rebecca Clark from Texas A&M University. You can read all about this new design on my Formicarium Research and Design thread here (http://forum.formicu...age-6#entry8766).
 
These here are the ones Dr. Rebecca Clark made.
 

 
 
This here is my new design.
 

 

 

 
 
Last night, after doing some humidity tests on it, and allowing some Camponotus workers live in it for a day to make sure nothing kills them, I moved one of the medium-sized colonies into it.
 

 

 

 

[dspdrew]

Update 12-12-2014
 
The original colony that lost half its workers, is doing alright now in their new larger test tube. Their fungus is very white and fuzzy again.

 

The colony I moved into my new fungus-grower nest is doing great. They have already increased the size of their fungus quite a bit. They seem to like building it up high like a tower, and then placing the brood at the very top. The humidity has been staying right in the low 90s, constantly leaving condensation on the sides. The floor is very wet, causing the fungus to get fluffier and whiter at the very bottom, but because of the design, it can never pool. Since there never seems to be any condensation on the top, it's been very easy to observe them through my microscope. I can't believe how fast the fungus grows. The workers would stick pieces of soggy substrate to their garden, and just hours later they were covered in fungus.

 

Since this setup seems to be working to well, I've already started making three more.

[dspdrew]

Update 12-30-2014
 
I now have all the colonies moved into my new fungus-grower formicariums. Some are doing great, but some are not. I also found a problem with the new fungus-grower formicariums I made where capillary action causes the Hydrostone to slowly erode, creating small holes in the bottoms of the fungus chambers. This takes a long time to happen, so it's not an immediate problem, but it could be in the future. I have already started working on an improved design that will eliminate this problem.
 
A couple colonies are doing great and are continuing to grow their fungus larger.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
One colony looked like they were eating a pupa the same way I've seen other species of ants eat their brood. As far as I know, these only eat fungus, so I'm not sure what they were doing. Three workers kept squashing it in their mandibles while it looked like they were drinking the liquid. I got it on video so you can judge for yourself.
 

 
 
Two colonies are doing poorly. The one I had on the webcam for a couple weeks suddenly decided to tear their fungus to pieces until it was all dead and gone. The first strange thing I noticed after moving them was that some of the workers would start fighting each other, until one of them was dead. i saw this happen about three times. They lost a few workers because of this. This video below shows one walking around with her dead sister still clamped onto her leg.
 

 
After a while, it seemed the fighting stopped. For some reason I never once saw ANY of these workers venture off into the foraging container to find more substrate for the fungus. Eventually they started tearing the fungus up, ripping it apart piece by piece. Soon there was nothing left at all. I cleaned out their nest, and put them back in with a new piece of fungus from one of the other larger gardens.
 
The other colony was one that was doing great up until a couple days ago. It had a really fuzzy white fungus garden, until yesterday I noticed it turning brown. It was still very fuzzy and healthy looking, but it was just turning a light brown. I didn't think much of it until I looked today, and found it all shriveled with brown liquid all over it.
 

 

 

 
 
All the workers were away from the fungus, and they had all the brood off of it and laying on the ground. The queen was the only one still on the fungus, and she was acting very strange--almost like she had been poisoned.
 

 
 
I have no idea what could possibly be causing this, but I have since put them into a new clean nest and gave them a new piece of fungus taken from one of the healthy fungus gardens. Since I doubt this colony is gong to make it, I gave all of their brood to the two smallest of the healthy colonies. It looks like a couple of the healthy fungus gardens might be turning that same brown color near the bottom where they're sitting on the Hydrostone, so I sure hope the same thing isn't happening to them.

[drtrmiller]

You see this same, brown liquid on mushrooms left in the fridge for too long.

 

Sounds like environmental stresses caused the fungus to stop growing, after which it quickly succumbed to opportunistic microbes in the nitrogen cycle, wherein the queen and workers were poisoned by the resulting ammonia or nitrites.

 

You can validate this theory by mixing the remains with some distilled water (1 part "fungus," 9 parts water, by weight or volume) and then testing the ammonia and nitrite level with an aquarium test strip or dropper kit.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:04 PM.

[InsideAntz]

I Really like those clear containers dspdrew... they are nice!

Where can I find them?

[dspdrew]

http://www.container...0032168&N=80804

[dspdrew]

Update 1-7-2015
 
The colony with the sudden fungus death has all died off. The queen was the first to go, then all the workers followed.

 

The colony that tore its fungus to pieces, has grown their new donated piece to about twice the size already and they seem to be doing fine now. Obviously they are out foraging for substrate now unlike before.

 

The reject queen lost her two boost workers, but the fungus is still healthy--small, but healthy. I gave her three new boost pupae to try again with her. One of them already eclosed this morning.

 

As for the five other colonies, three of them are doing great with their fungus more than double the size it was when I put them in the new nests. They all have plenty brood and workers. These were the ones I was worried about at the time of the last update, but apparently they're fine.

 

One of the last two remaining colonies is a small colony with a small fungus garden, but it looks healthy.

 

The eighth colony was a healthy one, but now has started ripping their fungus to pieces like that other one did. Right now they just have a very small but healthy looking (at this point) fungus garden remaining, with a large pile of dead fungus laying next to it.

[InsideAntz]

Thank you

[dspdrew]

Update 1-11-2015
 
The second colony to started tearing their fungus to pieces successfully killed it all. I put a new piece in their for them, but that looked like it started to die, and then last night I found the queen dead. Luckily this was a colony of only about two workers. This leaves me with six colonies--five good ones.

 

The reject queen I gave the boost brood to seems to have killed both of them so I'm not sure what I want to do with her at this point. She still won't do anything herself to grow the fungus garden any larger.

 

The first colony to tear their fungus garden to pieces is still growing their new garden very quickly. At this point it has already grown larger than that of what was the smallest healthy colony.

 

One of the largest colonies has started hanging their fungus from the ceiling like stalactites, which is good; apparently that's exactly what they're supposed to start doing.

[dspdrew]

Update 1-31-2015
 
All five healthy colonies are still doing great. All the fungus gardens are slowly growing bigger and bigger all the time. The reject queen is still just sitting there with nothing because I refuse to waste anymore fungus or pupae on her.
 
Two colonies now have fungus hanging from the lid, one being the colony that recovered after ripping apart and destroying their entire fungus garden a while back.
 
Here's pictures of the recovered colony with the fungus hanging from the lid.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Today I moved the smallest colony into a new nest with a cement floor instead of the Hydrostone, as a test to see if it's safe for them. Hopefully everything turns out okay, because I'm running out of ideas for an alternative to the problematic (for this particular setup) Hydrostone.
 
Aside from a few of the problems I had, taking care of these in general has been really easy and very little work. I actually haven't had to give them any more food or substrate since moving them into these formicariums. Today however, I decided to dump in more of the substrate mix I fixed up a while back just to make it a bit deeper and to give them a little more of a choice. I by no means needed to do this, as there was plenty in there still for them to continue to fertilize their garden for many more months.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:04 PM.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:04 PM.

[Chromerust]

In simple terms, they feed the fungus by pooping on it

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:04 PM.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-7-2015
 
As you can see from Vendayn's post, I traded some ants with him and as part of the deal, gave him the reject queen so he could give it one last try. I gave her one more piece of fungus before letting her go.

 

The colony testing out the new cement nest seems to be doing fine so far. All behavior looks pretty normal, and there have been no deaths.

[dspdrew]

 

In simple terms, they feed the fungus by pooping on it

So, that is in fact the fertilizer then? I know DSPdrew told me they grab some and do it like that...I just wanted to be 100% sure that is what was happening as I didn't really know what it looked like. Didn't want to jump to conclusions and get super excited for nothing.

 

 

I would hold the excitement with this queen until you really see something significant. If she is doing what you say, that sounds like more than I've ever seen her do. One thing to look for is if the pieces of substrate look soaked in something. I never once saw her actually wet the substrate with her secretions, so if you see her doing that, then that's amazing.

[Vendayn]

65q24g4g5f

Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:04 PM.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-25-2015
 
The colony in the new formicarium with the cement floor lost one worker two weeks ago, but I don't think the death was anything out of the ordinary. This nest obviously wasn't humid enough because the fungus eventually dried up and died. The ants also appeared to be very thirsty. I updated the design yet again, and moved them into the new one today. I gave them a new piece of fungus from one of the other healthy colonies. I noticed they had a relatively large amount of small, and unfortunately dead larvae on the dead fungus, most likely because of the low humidity.