Jump to content

  • Chat
  •  
  •  

Welcome to Formiculture.com!

This is a website for anyone interested in Myrmecology and all aspects of finding, keeping, and studying ants. The site and forum are free to use. Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation points to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!

Photo

Test Tube Setup Humidity


  • Please log in to reply
1 reply to this topic

#1 Offline Works4TheGood - Posted September 18 2015 - 7:33 PM

Works4TheGood

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 417 posts
  • LocationState College, PA
I've heard it said that Camponotus prefers drier nests. Would it then make sense that drier species would prefer a test tube setup with less humidity? How could that be achieved?

At first glance, a narrower test tube would seem to help since it reduces the surface area of the wet cotton. However, the surface area of the wet cotton remains roughly proportional to size of the air chamber that the wet cotton is humidifying and also to the cotton at the entrace which presumably reduces the humidity. So that won't work.

Then I thought that using longer test-tubes/air-chambers might help to control humidity. I suspect that providing longer air chambers would create a wider humidity gradient because there would presumably be less air traffic between the air at the entrance and the air at the wet cotton and so the rear of the air chamber would tend to be humid while the front was dry. But if queens always huddle towards the deepest place in the test tube, then having a gradient is of no help at all.

After yet more consideration, the best way to control the test tube's humidity might be to adjust the amount of cotton at the entrance. The more cotton, the more air that's trapped against the wet cotton. However, you can only make the entrance so narrow before there's an escape.

Maybe the lack of attention to humidity in test tube setups might explain when some losses.

If it truly is worth designing dryer formicariums for drier species, then the test tube setup would seem to deserve the same attention. Do you agree? Or is the humidity preferences between species mostly ignored because we simply provide a gradient. Still, I would think that you would want the optimal gradient for your species, since ignoring this preference could potentially make some of your formicariums barely tolerable to your ants.

I'm mostly just thinking out loud here and wondering what you folks think.
~Dan

#2 Offline Huch - Posted September 19 2015 - 4:41 AM

Huch

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 138 posts
I think you are on the right track in your previous thread by looking for the proper humidity levels for the species.

Edited by Huch, September 19 2015 - 4:49 AM.





1 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users