5 replies to this topic

[SpawnQueenoftheBroms]

greetings! i run a reptile rescue in upstate NY, came here looking for care advice and to read other members care journals for specific species. i've always been interested in the ant keeping hobby but could never get camponotus queens past the founding stage. this was until a colony of ants suddenly emerged in my redfoot tortoise vivarium and i was thrust headfirst into ant keeping. i have had so much success with these ponerine ants (IDers think they are Hypoponera, but exact ID hasnt been obtained yet) this colony most likely came in on some exotic tropical plants (funny how this works) and i have been keeping them successfully so that they have had nuptial flights with more and more colonies springing up. this past week i was offered 30 bromeliads that were destined for a woodchipper from florida (i have so many animals and plants are needed) and suddenly when i had set a young bromeliad in an ant vivarium and watered the central cup a young colony of Brachymyrmex came out! (1 queen, 20 workers and lots of brood) I now have the colony tubed up and here I am looking for great advice and share my experience as an ant keeper

[Kalidas]

Oh wow, interesting. So you did not come to the hobby it was thrust upon you. Well good luck and there are plenty of people around to offer great amounts of advice. The journals can be really interesting also.

[Skwiggledork]

Welcome from a fellow upstate NY'er. I'm pretty new, so I can't offer any personal experience, but always nice to hear from someone near me. 

[SpawnQueenoftheBroms]

been reading quite a few of the journals today, I'm also apart of quite a few ant groups on facebook until i found this forum while searching for care advice. i do culture many other inverts that i feed to my ever growing colonies. i do enjoy my ants quite a bit and find various ponerine species to be some of the most interesting so it works out (been 3 years since emergence day) since both species i currently keep are so tiny 2-3mm (ponerines) and 1mm (brachymyrmex workers, queen is 4mm) pics are damn near impossible but we are getting a high quality camera soon so I'm excited to get exact IDs on both

[Major]

Welcome! I live in Rochester, NY (Pittsford to be exact) and live 1 hour 38 minutes from Ithaca! Have you read my journal?

[Yosigi]

Welcome from the upstate-est Ny'er!  Lots of good info on the forums here, brachymyrmex are pretty commonly kept so getting advice for them won't be hard.