109 replies to this topic

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Another post right away cause I wanna explain the dynamic between the creatures inside the tank.

Let's get a timeline going.
Let's start in the morning when the sun comes through the window and the light and heating switches on.
That's where the ants emerge to do their things such as hunting, digging and overall ant business as usual. All the other creatures hide in the cave during the day only the ants are out and about.

The lights switch off at around 10pm and as the ant activity reduces to around half all the other creatures come out the cave and spread all over the terrarium.
I'm always surprised how many isopods I actually have in there. They pick up everything the ants left behind basically. They get every last scrap while some small spiders and the centipedes are hunting them down. It's also a more dangerous time for the ants.

That back and forth happens every day in the tank and the creatures have developed a coexistence with the humid cave being the home of most creatures even the ants love the high humidity and claimed dominance over this area.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

That's an example of the daytime where the ants are feeding as much as they want without anyone testing their dominance

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Example of the night time.
The ants toon what they wanted and the isopods move in to eat what the ants left behind and the springtails will eat the rest. The ants don't care about the isopods and they are mainly doing digging as always and work underground.

I like how they benefit from each other

[AntaholicAnonymous]

It's been a while and they are doing great.

They've been steadily growing and that is very obvious by the amount of honey water they drink.
Now they are starting to hybernate so you'll see about 3 ants drinking throughout the day but before I had at least 12 at every night and daytime bringing a constant supply back to the nest.

They used to only take smaller prey like small crickets and fruit flies but they take everything that can't run away.
They also almost always hunted alone now I see them running around in squads when they are hunting like a pack of Wolfes. lol

They also started to call backup. Before if they couldn't take something home alone or the ants they had with them they'd abondon it but now they actually call for backup and come back 20 deep which is awesome to see with those big intimidating red ants.

In the winter I'll improve their setup and I'll give further updates once they start their next season.

By then they'll have a fog system installed in the cave wich should help to grow some beautiful mosses in there and those big mushrooms that give it that fantasy forest look.
Can't wait.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

They awoke yesterday from their hibernation and they started nest construction today.

They hibernated about 2,5 months at l8°C or 64° Fahrenheit.
They are in my living room in a big tank so that's what they had to work with and it went perfect.
They hibernated despite warm temperatures, so do my Messor barbarus and so did my lasius niger.

Seems like they can chill without being cooled much and that's very important with this type of setup.

They didn't touch the egg I gave them.
At the moment they are just scouting the area, constructing tunnels restlessly and grab suger water to keep them going. Digging out additional tunnels won't stop until the next winter. I'm glad they have so much substrate (especially sand) to dig in otherwise I'd have a problem.


If you keep 20 of them in a jar of sand and check back in 30 minutes you'll see tunnels already collapsing because they won't stop digging. It's their drug of choice for sure. lol
They'll dig a lot of tunnels they won't use and the isopods then live in those tunnels.

I'll update as soon as I have more

[AntaholicAnonymous]

[AntaholicAnonymous]

While they were sleeping I changed up their setup a bit.

All the plants that were in front died so that was looking terrible.
I wanted to represent their attitude a little more so I made that extra entrance to the big wall of sand that they live in.
Besides their holes this let's you know where the demons live. lol

That area in front is the feeding area with clear view on the action, that entrance will give them better access to that area and they'll drag prey in the hole underneath the skull.

I'll redo the cave soon with a fog system. I also placed spikes around the cave entrance on the left to signal that they claimed it and are defending that territory which is accurate to what they are doing.

Edited by AntaholicAnonymous, February 4 2021 - 1:55 PM.

[Antkeeper01]

can't wait to get a M. hunteri colony this summer(maybe)

[AntaholicAnonymous]

can't wait to get a M. hunteri colony this summer(maybe)

I don't even know a manica species besides rubida. If there's some variety I might get another colony.
Manica rubida get up to a centimeter if there's a bigger species I gotta have it. lol

[AntaholicAnonymous]

The ants made a tunnel system right up to the glass in the cave under the mosses.

Isopods have the most numbers in the cave. Manica love the high humidity and its also their hunting grounds.
Many different mites, spiders, springtails, centipedes and millipedes like in the picture live in the tunnels the ants made. I even just saw a group of baby centipedes

I wonder if they do that as a hunting tactic, to build shelter for things they later kill or upgrade the amount of life their territory can sustain with that.
The rest of the tank is undisputed ant territory but they do get killed in the drainage gravel layer and in the cave occasionally.

They have an authentic relationship with their co inhabitants so I can observe their behaviors like you'd see in nature.

And as in nature they dominate the land. All the other insects try to not upset them. They either run or hold still when the ants come.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Manica rubida are pretty rare where I live.
From what I've read it's because they are sensitive to humidity and its hard for them to find a suitable habitat where they have a stable high humidity all year around.

The manica colony I observed a lot in the wild was next to a creek where I collected all the mosses for the cave, all the insects aside from the ants and most of the stones and branches in the setup.
All the mosses always died because of low humidity so now I have a fog machine letting fog in a hole at the roof of the cave.

I basically reproduce the conditions that I know my ants, plants and other critters are used to in the wild.
I got some branches from a dead fallen tree yesterday (at - 10°C) that were growing different moss species on it.
I'm trying to grow those out first and then in the spring get some carpeting moss.

The species in the foreground in the picture looks like it has flamingos sitting in it. lol
Seeing insects hunt in the cave between all these crazy looking plants and soon mushrooms again looks like observing another planet, especially in the night with the blue LEDs.
Now the fog makes the scene even more dramatic.

[ANTdrew]

That’s so awesome, man. How do you escape proof the tank if it is so humid?

[AntaholicAnonymous]

That’s so awesome, man. How do you escape proof the tank if it is so humid?

That's a good question.
I had this in mind when I first thought about making the tank.
I use fluon on the top edge around the tank.
The cave is completely closed with just a few small holes for moisture to escape slowly because I still need some ventilation.
I made a funnel and a plug for the hole where the fog goes in (I originally made the hole for maintenance) so the fog only enters the cave and doesn't escape through the top after.

Everything outside the cave is not very humid at all and I keep the soil on top of the cave structure bone dry so barely any moisture touches the fluon there.

The soil and sand that's not in the cave is very deep where I water so even tho the surface is dry the ants still have lots of moisture in their chambers.
How the water cycles is the tank is very important so I put a lot of thought into it.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

This is less of an update but more so an important observation I made.

As you know the ants coinhabit the setup with a range of other critters as they do naturally.
I was particularly worried about the centipedes breeding and flourishing in the drainage layer.
They are up to 4 times larger than the ants and their reputation as skilled hunters made me worried about them becoming an issue as they increase in numbers.

They mostly encounter the ants in a 1v1 scenario and I just happened to peak in at the perfect time (3am) to witness a confrontaion.
A fully grown centipede and an above average sized worker ant who was digging as per usual charged at each other unaware of what or in this case who might be ahead.
Half an inch before impact the centipede did a sharp 180 and fell into what looked like a state of panic and must have breached Mach 3 during the retreat.

Seeing the ant not even react made me confident that the hierarchy is established in their favor and the centipedes most likely exclusively feed on the abundance of isopods

[Kaelwizard]

That’s pretty funny honestly.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

We have arrived at the first little plot twist.

I covered the entire cave with mosses collected for outside and purposely didn't get rid of any hitchhikers.
What's the worst case scenario besides deadly mites that could be introduced?
Another ant queen maybe?

Exactly!
What ant would be the best case?
The infamous acorn ant of course and that's exactly what we are looking at.
She quickly ran for a good spot while dodging the way larger manica workers.
She succeeded in making her founding chamber and I'm now a proud owner of a potential acorn ant colony which I was planning on keeping next anyway.

I'm not concerned about them taking over the tank or even the cave I more so love that the ants now have an even more authentic experience in a now not so undisputed territory.
You never know what you'll witness when you peak into the setup and that unpredictability is what makes natural setups so special for me.
Is this a new jungle tribe that could ambush stray workers and compete for resources?
Only time will tell.

[ANTdrew]

So cool!

[gs5248]

Awesome! 

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Remember my talk about the unpredictability of nature and my experience with this setup?
Also remember me talking about the queen making her "founding chamber".

Foolish I was, wrong I was proven!
The plot thickens.



As you can see in this low quality picture above the manica ants in the sugar water test tube are accompanied by a duo of some secretive (what I believe to be) acorn ants.
I'm surprised at how efficient they are since especially under these circumstances it's very hard to get or even find this food source after being thrown in these foreign lands.

The manica ants are aggressive towards them but they rely on stealth to survive.
They move in duos (I've seen 4 pairs) and move very slow and careful. If the manica ants detect them they hide underneath bits of substrate and seem to be successful at avoiding danger which there is plenty of.
After a while of no further attack they peak out and continue their way if the coast is clear.

I'm certain they life in the dead tree bark the cave moss is growing on. They disappeared as quickly as they came. I'm very surprised and excited to have witnessed this.

[Kaelwizard]

Temnothorax have a tendency to be somewhere for a second, and then disappear. I guess it's because they are so small.