154 replies to this topic

[OhNoNotAgain]

Here's some advice. Take some sugar water and put it in colony 1's outworld and they should drink it and that's a good food alternative for fungus for now. Once you see them drinking continue to give them more until they no longer seem interested and then give them a bigger piece of fungus than the last. If you have questions about this method let me know.

Thanks! I have ant nectar so I could try that. And I am intending to try a bigger piece… if I can just be sure Colony 2’s is growing well!

[NicholasP]

My other advice is you try dried organic mint leaves with your Acromyrmex versicolor. Supposedly, ants hate mint and will avoid it at all costs. I have proven that FALSE with my Acromyrmex Versicolor for now. Not only does it make their nest and outworld smell good but the Acromyrmex LOVE IT! I think you should try it with both colonies. You may be surprised...

[Kaelwizard]

My other advice is you try dried organic mint leaves with your Acromyrmex versicolor. Supposedly, ants hate mint and will avoid it at all costs. I have proven that FALSE with my Acromyrmex Versicolor for now. Not only does it make their nest and outworld smell good but the Acromyrmex LOVE IT! I think you should try it with both colonies. You may be surprised...

My mother and I tried to use a natural ant spray (mint was an ingredient) to control the Argentines in my house, and it would kill them but after a while they would start to swarm it.

[NicholasP]

Well, the species I'm specifically talking about is Acromyrmex versicolor. I have only tested natural mint straight from the plant itself on Acromyrmex versicolor. I have yet to try my mint on my other ants. I will keep a list of ants it does not pose harm to though and put it in a post here in formiculture for everyone to know if mint is safe for their species or not.

Edited by NicholasP, February 7 2022 - 8:22 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

 

My other advice is you try dried organic mint leaves with your Acromyrmex versicolor. Supposedly, ants hate mint and will avoid it at all costs. I have proven that FALSE with my Acromyrmex Versicolor for now. Not only does it make their nest and outworld smell good but the Acromyrmex LOVE IT! I think you should try it with both colonies. You may be surprised...

My mother and I tried to use a natural ant spray (mint was an ingredient) to control the Argentines in my house, and it would kill them but after a while they would start to swarm it.

 

This is horribly off-topic, but I used to use orange oil to stop Argies for a couple weeks at a time. Over the years, they seemed to habituate to it, to the point where it would barely keep them at bay for any length of time. I stopped using it for a few years, switched to RAID during that time, and now orange oil seems to work again.

 

Re: mint: I have some mint (I forget what variety) and will try it out! Though ... after thorough washing and drying because they are a spider mite magnet. lol. I seriously tried all sorts of leaves though, and the foragers would just ignore ALL of them.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Yeah this is nuts but here goes. (EDIT: I also have been trying to offer ant nectar in the meantime. Thanks for the idea!)

Colony 2:
Recap: Colony 2 had shrinking fungus after desert leaves got used up, and when I put clover leaves/rose petals into their nest, they used the leaves but then destroyed the fungus down to 1/4 its size.

Colony 2 I moved into a cool Drew Acromyrmex set up.
But I only moved half the workers. Only the younger non-foragers got put in. Any super restless, brave, outgoing ant did not. Why? Because they are the useless foragers who don't like clover, roses, oats, or cichlid pellets, and probably consider it trash, and are therefore possibly less than helpful.
I then manually put leaves and rose petals on or near their small remnant fungus.
For a few days now they have been diligently tucking bits of leaves into their fungus.
No one is removing leaves (unfortunately this also means their garbage removal sucks too).
So it looks like I separated out the ants who don’t like clover and roses.

 

OH and I'll note I went EXTRA PARANOID and I actually DRY HEATED the leaves/petals (but not the oats) on the stove, JUST TO BE SURE microbes weren't the cause of the fungus destruction.

 

In the below photo, you can see the oat and the leaf bit I put on the fungus. And in the top right (darn photo rotation), you can see ant butts as they work like mechanics under their car. I mean fungus.

 

Colony 1:

Recap: Colony 1 had shrinking fungus after the desert leaves got used up, but something happened and they went crazy and destroyed ALL their fungus.

They have been with ZERO fungus for some days (every time I gave them a small piece from Colony 2, it would disappear overnight.)

Today I was given a NEW piece of fungus by Ys. (Thanks Ys!)
I had cleaned out Colony 2’s starter set up as best I could, so  I moved Colony 1 into that set-up. (This was actually hard as I was trying to move the ants and their brood WITHOUT picking up extra germs or trace fungus from their nest.) Then I gave them a piece of the new fungus once they were in their new pre-owned digs.

There was excitement and champagne being popped for a minute or two.
I again put bits of leaf and rose on or near it.
1. The queen freaked by all the air currents ran away to hide. At one point she was cowering in the outworld by herself.
2. A couple workers got busy checking out the fungus.
3. After an hour or two, I discovered someone was removing the leaves and throwing them out as trash, Someone even threw out a piece of leaf with precious fungus on it.
4. So I put the leaves back onto the fungus and I yeeted the two or three workers doing (3), throwing out leaves. If you yeet fungus food, I yeet you. Just caught another worker doing it again, so I yeeted her.

5. It was interesting to watch the tiny brood pile gradually disappear. Right after I dumped them into the pre-owned digs, the freaked ants had stored the brood in the connecting tube between nest and outworld. Over time, ants were apparently just passing through the tube, picking up a couple eggs or larvae, and bringing them over to tuck into the fungus.

Anyway queen is by herself near the fungus all exhausted because she’s so scared of me removing the lid to remove the sanitary experts who think food is trash. You can see her by herself in the below picture. Her gaster is tiny and I hope she'll be okay.

 

 

OH one little note. I tried giving a tiny piece of new fungus to Colony 2 (in the Drew set up), just to see what happens. They TOTALLY IGNORED it. lol

The rejects:
What happened to all the rejected workers? They are off in their own bin. I mixed the workers from both colonies. I gave them a pretty sizeable chunk of fungus and a bunch of leaves and petals and will see what happens. Photo of them below. For some reason, there are like a half dozen workers on the one big piece of curled up dry rose petal.

P.S. I know test tubes for fungus need sponge, not cotton, but I don't have a usable sponge at the moment.

 

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, February 17 2022 - 10:27 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

So both fungus gardens are still small - the gifted one is definitely very small - but the good news is I caught a workers actually feeding the fungus from a rose petal I placed on the fungus.

(The reject ants actually abandoned their fungus....)

 

YouTube actually decided something about the video is for adults only, 18+. Goodness knows why. I've appealed it, but you know what it's like being censored by an algorithm....

EDIT: Looks like they approved the appeal. You can view it freely now.

 

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, February 20 2022 - 3:29 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

I checked on the colonies today after being away a few days. Here’s a photo of the donated fungus:



Anyway I am continuing to act as forager for the colonies, since I got rid of their foragers. The remaining workers accept most of the stuff I dump on the fungus (I am still sterilizing the leaves/petals just in case and will stop when the garden is bigger - just can't risk any problems with gardens this small).
I’m thinking I should introduce more variety NOW before the young workers get too set in their ways.

 

So my theory is that the foragers (the older workers) somehow came to believe rose petals and clover were actually BAD for the fungus garden. So when those things were incorporated into the fungus by the younger workers and the queen (when I put them in directly into the garden area), the foragers went haywire and ripped out all the pieces and probably also destroyed the fungus that tasted/smelled like clover or roses. Hence the fungus shrank rapidly (both colonies) and was totally destroyed (in the case of Colony 1). Recall both fungi were already shrinking slowly because the desert leaves ran out, and the foragers weren't accepting clover or roses, which is why I intervened in the first place. It's interesting this happened to both colonies, and both colonies seem to be okay now with those older workers removed.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, February 25 2022 - 2:31 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Quick update. I actually killed off Colony 1’s fungus again. This time it was totally my fault… I had been regularly adding fodder and didn’t put the lid on tight enough and the fungus dried out. I watered it again but the ants rejected it and ripped it to shreds and threw it out. This time I gave them a piece of fungus from Colony 2. Though it was just a sliver, they took care of it and it’s now approaching the size they had in the photo above.

The yeeted workers never took care of the fungus bit given to them and they have all died.

Pic of Colony 2 larva lying on fungus.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, March 27 2022 - 10:05 PM.

[KadinB]

Oh no not again!

[OhNoNotAgain]

The Acromyrmex are both still alive. Their fungus is at this point still alive.

In fact, I made a video the other day (well, back in April) of one of the queens processing a piece of leaf for the fungus.

You can see her fold, spindle, mutilate the leaf, and also poop on it.

 

P.S. Fraggles are still alive but I haven't seen the queen in a long time. I should try to find her. I did see what I think is a brood pile. I should check.

 

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, May 23 2022 - 9:29 AM.

[Idontexist]

https://imgur.com/gallery/emnnFBti know i had to post this in my journal but do you have any tips for acromyrmex
https://imgur.com/gallery/emnnFBti know i had to post this in my journal but do you have any tips for acromyrmex
https://imgur.com/gallery/emnnFBti know i had to post this in my journal but do you have any tips for acromyrmex
https://imgur.com/gallery/emnnFBti know i had to post this in my journal but do you have any tips for acromyrmex
https://imgur.com/gallery/emnnFBti know i had to post this in my journal but do you have any tips for acromyrmex

[OhNoNotAgain]

Ugh photos not coming out well. Will update first.

 

1. FRAGGLES: They aren't touching the heating mat directly; they have an air gap and sit on a plastic turntable. Nonetheless, they seem to have a massive pile of brood, including a lot of pupae. They keep drinking off their sugar water. I dump in dead bugs sometimes. I can't find the queen but it looks like she's still alive (I hope). So it appears that fraggles do fine at these temp ranges:

Roughly 70ish F in winter.

Roughly 80ish F in summer.

Contrast with Veromessors who need higher than 80ish to produce brood.

 

 

2. ACROMYRMEX: Wow, what a saga. To catch up on our story, both colonies ran out of their desert leaves and then went crazy. Many of the workers seemed to regard the captive diet of clover and roses to be horrible. The foragers wouldn't bring it, the gardening ants would dig them out of the fungus and kill the fungus that included roses and clover. Only a few very young workers and the queens seemed to like clover and roses. So, after losing one fungus completely (and lost the replacement even), I threw out a bunch of questionable workers from both colonies.

 

Currently, both colonies are farming genetically IDENTICAL fungus (because Colony 1 needed a donor piece from Colony 2).

Colony 1 appears to have NO MORE workers who hate clover and roses. In fact, their fungus is now all over the lid and I just put their fodder in the foraging chamber, and THEIR FORAGERS COLLECTED clover and roses! Their fungus is HUGE and growing!!

 

Colony 2 STILL has some older workers who hate clover and roses. They will not forage it. I have to add clover and roses manually to their fungus chamber still. And the fungus has reached some kind of homeostasis size, with the queen and some workers processing the clover and roses, and the "bad" workers throwing it out. I suspect if I find and throw out the badly programmed workers, it will do better.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, June 25 2022 - 12:57 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Small update: Colony 2: I put some roses/clover in their outworld. Amazingly, of the three workers wandering around, one got excited and grabbed a leaf and ran home with it. The other two ignored the roses and clover, treating them like trash. I yeeted them out on the theory they could be responsible for uprooting roses/clover from the fungus. Maybe ... MAYBE ... their fungus will grow now? Another worker also got excited by the clover and ran home with some.

 

Oh, and I had never seen them do this before, but Colony 1's foragers were actually in the outworld cutting up large rose petals, ones too large to get into the nest. I had never seen them do this in the outworld before, mostly because (1) the desert foliage they'd had before had been tiny and required no cutting and (2) I'd had to dump the clover/roses into the fungus box while they were changing their diet over. This was cool. Finally, leafcutters cutting leaves in the outworld!

 

UPSHOT: The colonies finally are losing all their clover/rose-hating workers, and have converted to clover/rose loving workers. But it required yeeting the badly programmed workers who destroy fungus fed clover/rose.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, June 28 2022 - 8:15 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Small update again: Colony 2: Their fungus iS GROWING!!! It has a large, dark "bulge" now. For weeks and weeks the poor fungus was pruned down to a small flat oval, but now, those last two holdout workers gone, the remaining ants are able to build it up. I hope the dark section soon "blossoms" with fresh white filament growth.

 

If only FC didn't rotate all my photos 90 degrees >_<

[OhNoNotAgain]

Update 7/10/22
So apparently I didn’t find all of Colony 2’s clover haters, the fungus started shrinking again. I yeeted two more suspicious workers.

Colony 1’s fungus is soooo big, I used the old unused container and added it on.

I’m putting in photos even if they get rotated! Oooh they didn’t. I think I found the right phone rotation….

Compare fungus size!!!


Added extra rooms!

[OhNoNotAgain]

Pics and a video update.
Fungus as of today:




Video of Acromyrmex quacking like ducks, from 10 days ago. What is this sound?

[OhNoNotAgain]

Ugh, so I was going to be away a few days. I apparently overwatered the larger fungus.
I came back and 1/3 of the fungus is gone. Or maybe it dried out because I left a slight gap in the lid to let it dry a bit? The ants were in the spare chamber making those quacking drinking(?) sounds from the video. Anyway I added more water because the fungus chamber had no sign of condensation, but it’s hard to lift the lid without squashing ants when I put it back. They come running to any faint airflow, just like any other ant sensing a breach in their nest integrity.

Gah, in any case, balancing hydration is the usual difficulty with many arthropods and orchids and such, and Acromyrmex fungus gardens are no exception!



A photo of the reduced fungus and the queen’s actually visible.

And THIS is what an Acromyrmex keeper does NOT want to see.
This is the garbage dump, and it’s chock full of bits of fungus thrown out as trash (it turns this brown color when it dries out. When freshly thrown out it might still look like salvageable white fungus).


Edit: how do I close this lid?!? Look at all the workers I would squash:

Attached Images

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Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 10 2022 - 9:28 AM.

[ZTYguy]

Yeah, I’ve found huge success with my setup. It is a 5 gallon tank with an acrylic box in it. The floor is plaster so I simply drizzle in about 2-3 syringes of water every week. I’ve covered the top of the tank with plastic wrap and I let very little air come in (a small hole in the plastic wrap). This keeps humidity high and the fungus thrives in there with no issues. You can check out my journal for references. 
 

oh and good luck with the colony. They can be great at come backs when they are given the right conditions.

Edited by ZTYguy, August 10 2022 - 9:26 AM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Yeah the colony in the deli cups has LOST THEIR FUNGUS AGAIN. It was huge, and now it's dead.

It's pretty clear the set-up is vital. It's been very hard to manage the deli cup humidity once there are a lot of workers (can't lift lid without escapees/smushed workers) and it's hard to get a constant humidity.

 

Other colony is at its usual status quo.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 20 2022 - 12:58 PM.