26 replies to this topic

[Domagoj]

Hey, I'm fairly new to ant keeping, even tough I tried on a few occasion. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. Now, I'm trying to change that.

On Sunday, four days ago, I caught four queens I suspect are Lassius Niger (not sure, but I'll post some pictures as soon as I remember to bring my camera from work) and decided to make a formicarium for whichever one turns out to be most fertile. They are currently each in their own small Petri dish, each with a cotton ball of water and a cotton ball of sugar water. So far none has laid any eggs. I try not to disturb them very much and check up on them only once a day.

 

Anyway, I'm thinking of building a natural formicarium that should provide a bit of space. Here are my ideas and thinking process, and I would appreciate if you guys could tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

I have an aquarium 40x20x25 cm (18x8x10 in) that I plan on covering with acrylic lid with access and ventilation holes (covered in fine mesh) so the ants don't escape. I also ordered PTFE fluon thing, it should hopefully be arriving in a few days.

Bottom few cm (inch or so) would be rocks for drainage, then some screen to block soil from dropping down in between rocks, and then about 10 cm (4 in) of soil for ants to live in. That leaves me with about another 10 cm of head room where I'd like to plant some greenery (moss or other small plants) on approximately half of the surface and leave the other half a bit more barren to give me a chance to possibly observe the ants and give a bit more diversity. Perhaps the plants will spread but I could always do some gardening. A few rocks and dry branches for decor etc. I was thinking of adding some springtails to help with the ecosystem. I know that this approach will most likely not allow me to watch the nest, but I'd like to provide the ants with a comfortable place to live in, and I assume that would be natural soil.

 

That's all good I suppose, however, since I live in temperate region (northern Croatia) I understand that I'll have to hibernate the ants during winter, since that's what they would expect and need for a healthy and long life. At this time I'm not sure I'll be able to put them in a refrigerator for several months, but I could keep them on my balcony in a thermally insulated box, with a heater to kick in when needed to bring the temperature up to 5 - 8 °C (40 - 46 °F), and here is the main problem/dilemma I have. I had an idea that I think could work, but wanted to bounce it off of you guys. I would drill a hole in a fist sized rock and install a heater inside it. The rock would be ground flat on one side and glued to the side of the aquarium. Of course I'd drill a hole in the glass as well for the wires to go through. A bit of electronics would monitor the temperature and control the heater. This way the rock could be placed much deeper into the habitat than just a surface heater on the outside of the tank and would provide a more even heating. That's the idea anyway. I don't think I'd need to run the heater during the rest of the year, but the electronics could manage that too (a degree or two above room temp) if the ants decide they like it.

If I'm going down this route, I have to start the work rather soon, because, fingers crossed, I expect the queens to start laying eggs any day now and baby ants will soon follow.

So, what do you guys think about this setup? Do you see something fundamentally wrong with this approach?

 

Edit:

Updated title to include another provisional ID.

Edited by Domagoj, July 14 2020 - 12:11 AM.

[KitsAntVa]

If you use Fluon you will not need to have a lid plus not waist money on mesh but good ways to keep mold out of test tubes is use mesh on them instead of cotton. Also I feel that if your keeping your ants in a unconditioned room you will not need a heater, but to see if your queens like heat use a cable that produces heat and put it near the entrance of the test tube you have and if she goes near it put it a little closer and if she runs away don’t use a heater to much, but if she doesn’t she needs some more heat.

[KitsAntVa]

- plus you should keep your queen in a test tube until they either have little space or around 20-30 workers.

[AntsDakota]

- plus you should keep your queen in a test tube until they either have little space or around 20-30 workers.

Well, a natural setup should suit them just fine. The whole 'keep them in a test tube' thing is if you want to move them into a dirtless formicarium.

[Domagoj]

I don't mind the one time cost of the mesh, plus it's already in the mail, but is the fluon that effective? I suppose I can place the lid at any time if I see the ants escaping.
I have a piece of scrap acrylic laying around, and I have a laser cutter that should be capable of cutting it to size, so no additional cost there.
Are you saying that Petri dishes unsuitable? I used them only because I had them and didn't have test tubes. I could go buy some test tubes and move the queens to them.
The heater idea is primarily for hibernation period, in case I have to put the formicarium outside where temperatures can easily drop below freezing, and the main purpose of the heater would be to prevent freezing.

[ANTdrew]

I think a natural set up is a great idea. My advice, though, is to keep them in a smaller set up like your petri dishes connected to a small foraging container (like the Ikea Godmorgon boxes) until the colony gets much larger. That way you can enjoy observing them, and hibernation will be way easier. Once the colony hits 1,000, then put them in the aquarium.
Fluon is very effective, but it does not work on the silicone connecting the glass. You will still need a lid on your aquarium. Good luck!

Edited by ANTdrew, July 3 2020 - 3:06 AM.

[Domagoj]

Honestly, I'm strugling with the Petris. They have large covers and even the solo queens are tricky to contain once the cover comes off.
Also, I don't see how they could contain and support anywhere near a thousand workers. The dishes are only about 8 cm in diameter.
Your suggestion to keep the system small for now is something I'll have to think about. Sure, it's easier to stick it in the fridge, but if I have to hibernate them outside, I think a larger enclosure would be easier to keep at stable temperature.

Those Ikea boxes look very nice.

Would fluon be effective on acrylic? The sheet I have is not pristine (a little bit scratched).

[ANTdrew]

I highly recommend getting test tubes and starting your colony in them. Put the whole tube with a small opening in the Godmorgon box lined with Fluon. You can raise a colony to a massive size like this with no need for anything fancy. Ants love to be crowded. It’s their nature.

[Domagoj]

If I understand correctly, in this case the outworld would be dry and with only a thin layer of soil/sand to discourage the ants from settling there, right? The test tube would be their only source of water?

[ANTdrew]

Yes, exactly.

[Kaelwizard]

You stated you check on them once a day in the first post, correct? If you are still doing this, queens should be checked up on only about once a week, for some more often than that is okay.

[Domagoj]

They are covered with a cardboard box so they are in dark. I was just lifting the box and sneaking a peek, not really messing with them. I'll try to be more patient in the future, promise.

In the meantime, I posted in the ID section, so if my guess about them being L. Niger are not correct I can edit the thread title.

https://www.formicul...ia-3-july-2020/

 

 

[Domagoj]

A bit of an update:

Last week (05.07.2020.) I caught another queen. She looks the same species to my untrained eye. This time I caught her around noon, in my garden, on the composting bin.

 

Yesterday, I checked up on them and two queens laid eggs (the first and last I caught).

Babies are coming!

[ANTdrew]

Nice work! Keep us posted, brother.

[NickAnter]

All my Lasius don't really get too upset at being checked up on. It really depends on the individual queens.

[Domagoj]

Two more queens laid eggs, so they're now at four out of five. All still have their wings.

In the meantime, I've been busy. I still haven't let go of the idea of soil formicarium, but I decided to take your advice and postpone it a bit until one colony gets a bit more substantial. That gives me time to work on the the heater controller I intend to use for temperature control during hibernation. Since I'm doing it, I decided to overdo it and include a datalogging feature, multiple temperature sensors, and of course a humidity sensor.

I made the printed circuit board, tested the sensors and heater controller. Those work fine (talking about hardware, as there is no software yet). I still need to test the datalogging part (real time clock and SD card functionality, but i don't expect too many problems there), and write the software.

Even though I'd like to test this thing during the winter, and most likely not deploy before winter 2021/2022, Once I move ants into the formicarium there can be no more tests, so I suppose I'm on schedule, but then again, I'm on vacation now and have only two more weeks of totally free time to finish it (and several other projects). Looks good though.

 

That's the long term plan. More pressing, and related to the queens laying eggs like there's no tomorrow, I need to start work on their initial habitats. For that purpose I made these little things:

 

 

 

 

They are Petri dishes where I glued together either top or bottom parts. They have connectors so I can attach test tubes.

The first one is supposed to be a small nest, the rest are small foraging areas.

Material is gypsum mixed with sand.

Magnets are to hold the lids, which I still have to make.

Edited by Domagoj, July 19 2020 - 10:12 AM.

[Antkid12]

Looks nice!

[AntsDakota]

They’ll love it.

[Domagoj]

Thanks!

What you can't see from the photos is the fact that I messed up, which occurred to me only now. I have two different designs of test tubes, and while I was making the connectors I kept using the wrong one as reference. 

I made these ones to be a gentle press fit to the tubes, so there is no need for glue and it's easy to connect and disconnect them. The thing is, the tube I used to check the fit during the making is a full 1 mm smaller than the tubes the queens are housed in, so now my nice press fit is a loose fit with th tubes I need to use and not secure at all.

Since the connectors are glued in there really is no chance I'll be able to extract them without breaking everything, so I decided to make an adapter. Well, after about half an hour of fiddling, I made three and only then realized that the original stopper for the good test tubes is not only the perfect match for the tube (duh), but has a cavity on the outside that is also an almost perfect match for the connector, so I just need to remove about 0.5 mm of material and punch a hole. 30 seconds of work on a lathe.

 

I also decided to make a few more nests of the same design as above, can't play favorites with the queens, can I?

Edited by Domagoj, July 20 2020 - 3:12 AM.

[Spazmops]

If you use Fluon you will not need to have a lid plus not waist money on mesh but good ways to keep mold out of test tubes is use mesh on them instead of cotton. Also I feel that if your keeping your ants in a unconditioned room you will not need a heater, but to see if your queens like heat use a cable that produces heat and put it near the entrance of the test tube you have and if she goes near it put it a little closer and if she runs away don’t use a heater to much, but if she doesn’t she needs some more heat.

Lids are generally a good idea to keep pets/kids/other animals out of your formicarium, and to keep flying alates in.