24 replies to this topic

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I agree on that^.
I do not keep a nestmate in the nest as my ants got fussy about water being too in/near their nest. Often plugging it up with dirt and/or draining the water into the nest making it too humid and wet inside.

 

I place nest mates in the outworld as a water source, just making sure they have enough tilt that the air will collect at the top.

[bootsfirst]

Thanks a ton as always both - appreciate the positive energy, useful facts, and thinking on hydration.

We had our first two homegrown eclosures ever yesterday (not counting the brood that arrived when we first purchased them), and it’s so exciting to see the callows up and walking around the nest!

I do think it’s plausible that hydration is a factor - I keep the water tower pretty full (and occasionally overfill it by accident which is when we get the condensation you see), and never let the nestmate get empty, but they do block it off and I see fewer of them drinking from it than in the past (not sure if that’s just a function of fewer total ants though lol).

I gave the nestmate tunnel another clean out for easier access, but maybe I should also consider an outworld water source? Is there anything specific that I should do for that to eg, avoid them falling in and drowning, or is something like a bottle cap with water sufficient?

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Thanks a ton as always both - appreciate the positive energy, useful facts, and thinking on hydration.

We had our first two homegrown eclosures ever yesterday (not counting the brood that arrived when we first purchased them), and it’s so exciting to see the callows up and walking around the nest!

I do think it’s plausible that hydration is a factor - I keep the water tower pretty full (and occasionally overfill it by accident which is when we get the condensation you see), and never let the nestmate get empty, but they do block it off and I see fewer of them drinking from it than in the past (not sure if that’s just a function of fewer total ants though lol).

I gave the nestmate tunnel another clean out for easier access, but maybe I should also consider an outworld water source? Is there anything specific that I should do for that to eg, avoid them falling in and drowning, or is something like a bottle cap with water sufficient?

I would remove the water source form inside their nest and keep it only in the outworld. If the nest seems overly humid an empty and uncapped nestmate can allow for some ventilation to reduce humidity. But i've otherwise kept all the unused ports in my nests plugged up.
Once the colony grew in size they started showing me that they do not like anything near their nest entrance they didn't put there themselevs. Including water sources. Once they were in the 50+ zone they always drained/plugged up any water sources placed close enough to their nest entrance.

If you have a blunt tip syringe for filling the watertower, try this out:
1: do not add water for a long time
2: use air in the syringe to check water levels, if the water level is high enough you can hear and/or see bubbles in it.
3: once the water level is probably very low, take a careful measurement of how much water you put in the syringe
4: now you can get a good idea of how much water the nest can hold, and in the future you'll know how much to put in the syringe to not overfill the nest

I use the air method just to test if i need to add water at all. If i can her bubbles, i do not add more water. Once i do not hear any bubbles, i also know how much to fill the syringe to not overflow the nest.

For water in the outworld you can use a nest mate, just be sure it has a little tilt to it so the air bubbles rise to collect by the plug.
I also use very shallow trays(the tiny feeder trays from THA). My pogonomyrmex can get trapped in the tray due to the water physics. But it's too shallow to drown in so they hangout until enough water is gone they can just walk out again. They will literally take a nap on top of the water while they wait for enough of it dry out.

Nestmate in image is just leaning against the wall of the outworld, exposing the mesh to drink from at the bottom and collecting the air at the top.


I also use THA tiny water dispensers.
I've also tried the tiny glass jars and 3D printed caps, but the little printed caps got dirty in way i could not clean over time so i haven't replaced those as they've aged.


 

[bootsfirst]

Okay, after waking up to another two deaths, including one of the fresh callows, I took action on your suggestions, and I think you guys are right on about a water problem.

 

I moved the nestmate into the outworld and will watch to see if they drink from it, but moreover I think I've been significantly underwatering the poor girls.

 

In the past I was topping up the nestmate with 3 or 4 CC of water a couple of times a week, which seemed fine, and over time I've probably gotten less diligent about that, in particular because I've seen it "overflow" from that amount a couple of times. BUT -> I think actually what may have been happening is that if I insert the tiny bent syringe tip at the wrong angle, the water is going out directly into the substrate rather than into the water tower itself and so they didn't actually have too much water, they had it in the wrong place!

 

Today I did the "bubble test," and heard nothing, then filled 1cc at a time until I actually overfilled slightly (woops) and could hear the test, which took ~10CC! Going to get more rigorous about checking by listening for that and dial in how much / how often I fill.

Edited by bootsfirst, April 27 2025 - 5:36 AM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I also had that build issue in my first nest, where the water input tube had a sort of "double angle" in it that allowed me to miss the tray and soak the nest material instead.

Sounds like a good catch on this one, as a callow dying is generally a sign of something unhealthy going on in the colony.
I've found it is challenging to see if the tower is low on water or not by just looking in it. Which is why i devolved the bubble method, and now just inject a bit of air to determine if i need to add more water or not. Though every tower is a little different, the lower the tube goes into the tower the better the bubble measure method works for gauging how full it is.

So glad to hear it seems like you've discovered what was going on with the colony. And i'd expect they should recover quickly now that their living conditions are back to a more optimal humidity. The nest being soaked internally also explains for me why the early images glass seemed to have way more condensation on it than i would have imagined for the setup. Going from likely too wet for them to too dry in fairly short order.

 

P.S.

When injecting air, be sure not to have pulled in any of your own breath to the syringe. They will loose their chit if mamal breath comes rushing into their nest chambers. I've done this a couple times not paying attention and they so freak out.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, April 28 2025 - 8:01 AM.