Okay so I'm still pretty new to the hobby, only started a few months ago. I'm learning a lot. It looks like there's still way more to learn. Well one of those things is that local household ants find captive ants quite tasty. I lost all of my ants with out-worlds except for two. I believe the attacking ants are Argentine ants because they die very quickly when exposed to water. As far as I know Solenopsis invicta would have at least floated or survived for at least 10 minutes.
I keep my ants in a two drawer setup. The top rack has my test tubes while the bottom rack has ants in out-worlds. The out-worlds are containers with small punched holes with a classic test tube setup inside them. Turns out the small punched holes were big enough for the invading ants to get in. Also some of my ants ran out of water so I connected them to another test tube with tape. I left a gap in the tape for air but the attacking ants also slipped in that small gap.
What I learned: Don't leave open gaps and holes in your containers. Plug them up with cotton.
Losses:
3x Myrmecocystus mexicanus
3x Pogonomyrmex
10+ aggregate smaller species.
First picture shows the attacking ants crawling through the small holes in the lid. I think next time I can cover those with pieces of cotton to prevent anything from coming in while still allowing air to pass through. I lost two Pogonomyrmex subnitidus this way.
Next up is a photo of my surviving Pogonomyrmex rugosus. She survived the attack despite her brood being taken and her workers killed. She might've been to big for the few dozen attacking ants that managed to slip in to handle. This is an altoids container that didn't close all the way. Maybe the colony would have survived if it was closed fully. Right now she's in a new test tube setup and hoping she can start again.
Lastly is something most people don't want to see. The loss of three Myrmecocystus mexicanus. That's right they took away three honeypot ants which had several cocoons. I also lost 2x Dorymyrmex insanus, 2x Pheidole xerophila, 2x Forelius sp.. So these queens were in a classic test tube but were running out of water so I attached them to another test tube with tape. I believe the solution for this is to put cotton in the gaps.
You can see the corpse of the Myrmecocystus mexicanus here.