471 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Update 12-7-2019

I used the remaining fungus from the colony that moved into the 10-gallon Dirt Box setup to get a few more queens started a couple weeks ago. By now most of the new queens have failed. However, I do have 18 that so far are doing quite well. The other 10 that are left are likely failing.

 

The old colony in the regular formicarium is actually growing some new fungus, so that is good. That will be the only colony I can donate fungus from unless one of these new queens makes a large enough fungus garden.

 

The colony in the 10-gallon tank is doing great. They have two chambers dug with what looks like really healthy fungus in them. This colony will be fun to watch, but unfortunately I won't be able to take any fungus from them if I need it.

 

 

 

[Kalidas]

That is such a neat setup. I hope it all works well.

Too bad so many are failing, but that really is normal for them. The fact you have so many remaining is a sign that you have learned a lot about caring for them

[B_rad0806]

nice, hope these guys do well

[dspdrew]

Update 1-31-2020

I'm down to eight new colonies from last season now. Three of them are doing really well, with fungus gardens that are growing larger every day. A few more are very healthy, but don't seem to be growing any larger. One of the remaining eight is doing really bad, and probably won't make it.

 

This is the original colony from two seasons ago. It regrew all the fungus I took from it, and even more.

 

 

 

 

This is the largest and fastest growing of the new colonies.

 

 

 

 

They just recently started hanging the fungus from the ceiling.

 

 

 

 

This is the second largest and fastest growing new colony.

 

 

 

 

This colony has very healthy looking fungus, but it just doesn't seem to get any larger.

 

 

 

This one is small, but the fungus is growing pretty fast. I just moved it out of a starter formicarium and into this larger one-chamber formicarium.

 

 

 

The colony living in the 10-gallon tank is doing great too. It's getting larger every day.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-2-2020

I'll start with the colony in the 10-gallon Dirt Box. This colony is still doing great. It has grown to probably hundreds of workers, and has dug chambers on all four sides now. They have also made four entrances to their nest now. The original one looks like it's plugged up for good, and they're still currently using the other three. I can clearly see now why the fungus chambers always have such clean glass and are so easy to see--the ants are constantly licking it off. I guess it makes sense, because I assume that is what they always do in their fungus chambers to keep things as clean as possible.

 

We had a heatwave hit last week, and a few days into it, I noticed all of the colonies fungus was starting to die, and one of the new colonies lost theirs completely. I think theirs might have even died off before the heatwave though, because I found the queen dead too. This leaves me with only two new colonies from last season. It was over 90 degrees inside the ant cabinets where they were all kept, so I quickly moved them into the kitchen where it was cooler. After a few days of being kept in 75-80 degree temperatures, the fungus started looking healthy again, and one colony even started growing it in the second chamber I gave them months ago. I had been wondering why in the world they wouldn't expand to that other chamber, and now they finally did.

 

This is the side of the 10-gallon where the original fungus chamber was made. That one died off a while back after they started growing fungus in some of the other chambers.

 

 

 

Here you can see the end with the most healthy fungus now.

 

 

 

 

I've noticed how the bottoms of all of the chambers just end up being a bed of gravel too large for them to carry. It actually make sense that it would end up that way.

 

 

 

Here's all of the nest entrances they made. You can see how large some of the gravel they carry out of the nest is. It's interesting how they seem to leave it all closer to the entrance.

 

 

 

 

This is the other colony I still had from the year before, that I was originally taking fungus from. Their nice healthy fungus chamber started to die off, but they quickly replaced the dead fungus with new, and you can see the new chamber they just started growing fungus in.

 

 

 

It's pretty cool how they hang it from the ceiling like little strings.

 

 

 

 

This is the largest of the remaining two new colonies from last season.

 

 

 

And here's the other remaining colony. It has really healthy looking fungus and is starting to grow pretty quickly now.

 

[Zeiss]

Looking good.  I had a fungus die off on mine as well, but I think that was due to neglect, haha.  I gave them more substrate today and they went crazy for it.  I can't remember exactly how old it is, but it's coming up on 2 years.

[FSTP]

this is world class ant keeping. 

[Manitobant]

Update?

[ponerinecat]

Looking good. The fungus grids on the ceilings resembles some of the smaller neotropical genera.

[BeerBandit]

is there a way to follow for future updates? or do i have to make a comment in here?

[FSTP]

is there a way to follow for future updates? or do i have to make a comment in here?

 

 

 

You click the "follow this topic" tab in the upper right hand corner. Then you will receive email notifications if you have them turned on in you user control panel.

Edited by FSTP, September 21 2020 - 4:34 PM.

[dspdrew]

 

is there a way to follow for future updates? or do i have to make a comment in here?

 

 

 

You click the "follow this topic" tab in the upper right hand corner. Then you will receive email notifications if you have them turned on in you user control panel.

 

 

Unfortunately, until I get the server moved back into the data center, he won't get the emails because of where his email is hosted. This is true for probably most members of the forum right now.

[Ants_Dakota]

 

 

is there a way to follow for future updates? or do i have to make a comment in here?

 

 

 

You click the "follow this topic" tab in the upper right hand corner. Then you will receive email notifications if you have them turned on in you user control panel.

 

 

Unfortunately, until I get the server moved back into the data center, he won't get the emails because of where his email is hosted. This is true for probably most members of the forum right now.

 

i have noticed that. I have received no emails recently.

[BeerBandit]

eh, ill just keep checking back. thank you

[dspdrew]

Update 1-17-2021

I still have all four colonies. Of the three in the plastic modular formicariums, I don't even remember now which one was the newer one, and which two were from three seasons ago. I have added two new chambers to each of the three by now, but recently they have been removing fungus much faster than growing new for some reason, so two of them have multiple empty chambers now.
 
This is the smallest colony. They decided to remove all the fungus from the first chamber, and now are removing it from the third. I thought maybe if there was some problem, they would start growing it in the new chamber (doesn't look so new anymore), but so far they have not. The chambers in this nest for some reason are remaining extremely wet, and I can't figure out exactly why. I think it might have something to do with how high I am keeping the water level in the water tank.
 

 
 
This is the second largest. They have cleared out one of their chambers, and are working on another too unfortunately. I hope they start growing some new fungus soon.
 

 
 
This is the largest colony. Thankfully they haven't cleared out any of their chambers. This colony for some reason always insists on putting stuff in the new chamber I gave them. Before they were putting all of their garbage in there, which actually made it a lot easier to clean out. There were hardly ever very many ants in it, so I just had to remove it and clean it out, as opposed to opening the foraging area where there are always tons of ants. Lately, as you can see, they have now decided to start storing all of their substrate in there too. This is a very stupid idea, because now it is all starting to mold. I don't know why they keep doing this, but I wish they would stop.
 

 

 
 
Once the next possible Acromyrmex flghts are only a few months away, I'll probably sell the smallest one of these colonies, assuming I still have all three.
 
Here are some new pictures of the colony living in the 10-gallon dirt setup. I took pictures of all four sides.








 
 
It's fun watching this colony, as it acts very much the way they do in the wild. The most interesting thing is the nest structures. One day I will make a setup like this that has the entrance in the center of the foraging area. This way they will be able to make their entire mound.
 

[Zeiss]

My Acromyrmex colony also purged a decent amount of fungus over the Winter.  They just have their walls coated in some fungus for now.  The good thing at least is that it looks to be very healthy.

[ANTdrew]

That tank is the coolest thing ever. I think I’m going to try making something similar for my Formica argentea colony, but on a much smaller scale. I have a few months to figure it out.

[benxixi]

can you sell me some fungus ? I have a small colony , but fungus dead....

[antsandmore]

can you sell me some fungus ? I have a small colony , but fungus dead....

He would have to dig up the whole colony to get some fungus, which means killing the colony. I would look for other people who have fungus.

[Kaelwizard]

 

can you sell me some fungus ? I have a small colony , but fungus dead....

He would have to dig up the whole colony to get some fungus, which means killing the colony. I would look for other people who have fungus.

 

He has colonies in set ups with no dirt that are easy enough to take from. He used one of them for that purpose in the past.