14 replies to this topic

[lucascquintal]

I have a young collony of leafcutter ants (around 20 workers), that i assume to be Atta Cephalotes, and today i notice that the major worker was running crazy on the outworlds with her jawls open. After some minutes, or hours because i don't know when she started with this, i notice that she was upside down with no moviment on her four rear legs. She couldn't even turn herself up. When i did it myself she tried to run, but still with no moviment on her four rear legs. I don't know if her intend was to die as far as possible of the nest. Moments ago another worker aproches her and started to run crazy as well and i am concerned she will die too.
Does anyone have any clue about what may have caused this? Please help. I keep the outworld open with no lid, and used vaseline to make it work. Could an spider or other animal like this have attacked the ant??

I attatched 3 short videos i made to illustrate the situation.

[Nare]

Looks vaguely like she might have encountered some sort of insecticide or other poison. Have you given this colony any leaves yet that may have been contaminated or sprayed with chemicals of some sort? Have you sprayed your room with Lysol or any other type of disinfectant?

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

Have you been near any pesticides or anything that is used to kill insects? It may be that there is a disease spreading around the habitat as well, but we need some more information

[TheMicroPlanet]

I think there'd be barely any of that ant left if this was because of a predator. My guess goes with pesticides or some other chemical.

[lucascquintal]

I don't think it might be a pesticide because i only feed them with plants of my yard, that for sure is clean of pesticide, some popcorn corn smashed and water with sugar. But just today i washed the stones that i use in the outworld with water and soap... But i do this every week. At the time I'm writting this the other ant that had contact with the one that was upside down is upside down too, but when i touch they show they are alive, but with little response.
The sugared water i made with a proportion of 1 water to 1 sugar three days ago..

[lucascquintal]

These information i shared on another forum some time ago, i don't know if it is related to this problem, but might help to understand the case with more infomation about the setup.

 

 

 

At first, I'm new on antskeeping and here on the forum, and sorry for my english that might not be very good.
Last year i met AntsCanada channel on youtube and soon got in love with antskeeping. I watched many videos, read many things, but as i haven't put my hands on work, all that theoric knowledge is growing lots of doubts now i have started my own colony.
Well, four months ago i was able to catch four queen ants on a rain day, that latter i discovered as being leafcutter ants. I placed all four in test tubes, and only one was able to trieve. After the first ten workers got born i transfered the test tube to a nest setup that i made myself (I live in Brasil and i don't found nothing to buy that wasnt too expensive).
In these four months many things happend to my colony. At the start i think i made a huge mistake by loosing the original fungus the Queen came with from her previous nest on the wild. By today i'm not certain if they are surviveing without the fungus or if i just can't see it because its too small.
Today there is about 20 workers, some big, some small, and the queen, and judging by the fact that everyday i see workers cutting leafs, i imagine they are going ok. I will post images.
For food, they eat only leafs and honey. I gave them some small insects as fruit flies, but they don't care. I don't know from what they are getting protein.
My bigest question is: the ants are putting the old leafs in one chamber of the nest. Is this garbage or a fungus garden?
and a second question: how do i mantein the humidity high enought to their confort from my setup?
a third question: they did'nt got out of the inicial test tube. Is this ok until there is water in there? A time after i made the setup i got worried if the tubes are small to the queen to transitate.
I want to thank all that read all this, and be free to give me any ideas, or to point what i am doing wrong.

This is their setup. The blue and orange chambers they are not using. The red one they use as garbage, i assume as with some leafs they place dead ants there. But i don't know if they intend to use it as a fungus garden. I keep cleaning it. They dispose some old leafs in the outworld too. The tube that conects the intenal part of the nest with the outworld is full with leafs.
For humidity, in the chembers i placed one humid cotton and a humid paper on the top with small roles on the cover.


This is their outworld. I keep it always clean. The water there i use to keep the plants longer, and some white rocks for the ants to walk on there.

[lucascquintal]

And by the way, thank you for answering me. I'm a little desperete with this problem. Also, shoud i isolete the two ants there are dying?

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

I would, just to be safe

[zantezaint]

I wonder if this has anything to do with your plastic tub you are using and it's toxicity. https://www.theguard...search-analysis Some plastics tend to have toxins that can internally destroy ants. That same motion your leaf cutters were doing happened to my honeypot workers that I had placed in a newly built grout formicariums, which I ended up discarding because my workers were spasming and eventually dying from it.

[lucascquintal]

I wonder if this has anything to do with your plastic tub you are using and it's toxicity. https://www.theguard...search-analysis Some plastics tend to have toxins that can internally destroy ants. That same motion your leaf cutters were doing happened to my honeypot workers that I had placed in a newly built grout formicariums, which I ended up discarding because my workers were spasming and eventually dying from it.

 

Do you mean the test tube made out of plastic that i use (it was the only type i found on local stores, that actually is used to store candies on commerce) or the blue palstic lids that are shown is this picture?

 

 

[Temperateants]

update?

[lucascquintal]

update?

 

The two who were sick are dead now. The rest of them, around 15 workers (medium to small of size) are apparently showing signs of normality. Nothing major happened since then. 
 

On the other hand, i made two few changes in my way of taking care of them. I changed the cotton inside the fungus chamber (that i don't really know if is the fungus chamber or the trash chamber, since they didn't move there. But the watter in the test tube is ending and soon we will know) to a bigger one, and this improved a lot the umidity in this chamber. I will do this with the ones in the otter two chambers as well. 
Also i started to give them soy prothein. 

 

My biggest concern is that there is very few brood and eggs, and if i am wrong about the chamber that i assume is the fungus one, i don't see any fungus. 

 

I don't know, but my first impression is that this event didn't affect the way of life of the nest in general, beyond 15% deaths. At some point i saw 25 workers, but now i only see 15 more or less. Thanks for caring, i will continue updating.

Edited by lucascquintal, April 8 2020 - 5:19 AM.

[Temperateants]

How do these ants survive without fungus? I've saw online that it's possible to "transplant" some fungus from a wild colony, but I don't think it's a good idea to endanger a mature wild colony to obtain fungus.

[lucascquintal]

How do these ants survive without fungus? I've saw online that it's possible to "transplant" some fungus from a wild colony, but I don't think it's a good idea to endanger a mature wild colony to obtain fungus.

 

I don't think its worth either. But maybe i just can't see with naked eye... The fact is that the brood is getting fewer every day... I'm concerned, but hopefull.

[Temperateants]

update?