2 replies to this topic

[finn]

I got a colony of Pogonomyrmex. occidentalis for christmas. They were a complete surprise and i didn’t know anything about them. They came with a THA mini hearth but no plugs and i had to use sponges until those arrived. I think thqt caused a humidity issue but then i got a nest mate so i thought that would help. The ants never fully moved into the formicarium from the test tube and slowly started dying despite having food and water (although they stopped foraging so i do think they may have starved). when i was down to 5 workers i got a test tube set up and by the time it arrived all but the queen had died. The queen moved quickly and i got her protein jelly and alternated that and seeds. she didn’t touch the seeds but seemed happy and a little active. Today i got home from work and found her dead and i don’t know what happened. She was in the test tube set up for at most 2 weeks before she died

[Stubyvast]

Okay, so I guess what you should be looking for then is one of the following: Mold, heating issues, moisture, and prior issues with the queen.

 

Apparently, occidentalis require a lot of moisture. If you were using sponges, it's possible they simply didn't have enough moisture in the nest, which could have potentially killed the queen due to dehydration. 

 

According to Grok.com:

 

"Pogonomyrmex occidentalis needs a steep humidity gradient, with the nesting area (especially for the queen during founding) close to 100% humidity. When you first got the colony, the THA Mini Hearth didn’t come with plugs, so you used sponges. Sponges can dry out quickly, leading to inconsistent humidity, which could have stressed the ants from the start. Even after you got the Nestmate plugs, if the Mini Hearth wasn’t maintaining the right humidity levels, the issue might have persisted."

 

So I would say that this could have been the problem. In terms of heating, it's possible that a lack of heating contributed to the colony's death. Apparently they like a good amount of heat. 

 

The queen could also have been genetically bad, which sometimes happens, and this can result in her untimely death. However, since workers died before her, I doubt this was the problem.

 

It could have also been something to do with the food, maybe a lack of nutrients or the food went bad? 

 

But yea, this from zero experience with the species myself, this would be my best guess based on common problems with founding ant colonies. I'd do a check through the forum's archives to see if you can find more information on raising occidentalis. 

Good luck!

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

From your description my best guess is either some kind of poison got to them, like a pesticide of some kind maybe if you ever fed them any store bought fruit or something. Potentially if you used regular tap water for them, the chemicals we can handle that keep the water clean and safe for us can be too much for their tiny bodies to take over time consistently.

 

Also double and triple check the water tower in the nest. Not the nestmate, but the little port on the back that is used to inject water into the little plastic tray we call thew water tower, which is the main source of nest humidity. It can be hard to tel if it has water in it, and some times the port to inject water in can be "leaky" and let the water miss the tray and go directly into the nest plaster material. Which will release it into the nest for humidity, but also then dry out really fast. While the water tower would evaporate the water much more slowly over time and keep the humidity levels high for a longer time.

 

It can be hard to tell if the water tower has water in it, i use the blunt tip syringe(common tool for ant keepers) to blow air into the water tower and listen for bubbles to "see" if the tower has water in it or needs some filling.

 

 

Just because this nearly happened to another keeper recently, but they discovered the situaiotn in time. I am guessing this may have been the cause, as your descriptions of what was going on seem very similar.


The ants basically like:
high humidity
fairly high temps(into high 80s)

they drink a fair bit of water

seeds are for brood

sugars and other liquids are adult ant food
 

 

That's the main list there to try and assess what went wrong, if it was not the accidental introduction of something poisons to them.

too dry
too hot(cold would mostly slow them down but not kill them, but too much heat would cook them)
not enough to drink
not enough liquid food for the adults to eat(liquid sugars/sunburst/fruit slices/berries/hemolymph aka insect blood)

THA has a good reputation, so i'd not imagine a weak or sickly colony from the start.