472 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Update 2-19-2016
 
The update is on the colony that's been living in a tub for the past three weeks, waiting for their new formicarium to be built. Well I finally finished it last night for the most part. All I have left to make is the lid. Once that's built, I can remove all the ugly Fluon from the rim.
 

 
 
It's funny what they decided to do with all the Nyjer seeds in their substrate mix. I also noticed they are indeed putting some of these on their fungus.
 

 
 
Since there wasn't room to set their fungus chambers on the ground in the out world, I had to stack them on the tank filler tube. They're all sitting on a lid that's glued to the cap, so they shouldn't fall over. The move process worked well and was pretty easy; now I just have to wait for them to dig their new nest and move in. I really can't wait to see how they dig their nest, and how they grow their fungus in it. I set up a warm light to shine down on them during the day.
 
For now I have the whole thing sitting in a Fluon-covered tub in case the thing leaks water, or in case the ants escape the Fluon rim. The outside of the tub is coated with Fluon also to keep any Argentine ants from getting to the colony.
 

 
 
I pulled all the plugs out of the containers, to help dry them out a little faster. The last time I let Acromyrmex move out on their own, they continued living in their old containers for months, even without any water source connected to them.
 

 
 
This colony has shrunken a little more, and is quite a bit smaller than my two other large colonies now. Hopefully they'll start doing a little better living in this setup.
 

 
 
I gave them the same little ramp they had while in the tub.
 

 
 
I checked them this morning, and they had already started digging their nest in three different places.

[Vendayn]

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Edited by Vendayn, March 9 2018 - 7:07 PM.

[Alza]

How will you move them when they grow out of that?

[dspdrew]

Pull the plug I drilled down near the bottom of it.

[LC3]

Acronomyrmex architecture will sure be interesting to look at. 

[dspdrew]

The colony has been busy. They have about six holes going right now, and almost every worker is helping with the digging.
 

 

 

[Mdrogun]

I'm curious to see how they will transport the fungus into their tunnels.

[dspdrew]

They won't move it all in there. They'll just start a new fungus garden.

[dspdrew]

Update 2-25-2016
 
A little update on one of the largest colonies: A while back I put a container in their out world in hopes that they would use it as a trash can. At first they didn't, but eventually they started putting all their trash in it, just as I suspected they would. This sure made it easy to clean out.
 

 
 
The colony in the giant vase setup is still working tirelessly on their new nest. I was getting a little worried at first, because I wasn't seeing any tunnels or chambers in the dirt, and the fungus in the containers was starting to dry out and die. I put all but one plug back into each of the containers to slow down the evaporation. The top container I just removed because all the fungus was dead in that one.
 

 
 
Even though I couldn't see anything, I knew they were doing a lot of digging, because I removed probably about one liter of dirt from the out world.
 

 
 
To my surprise, when I pulled the cover down further than I was before, I found chambers! Not only that, but they already have fungus gardens hanging from the tops.
 

 

 
 
With all the new fungus gardens, I figure they would need some fresh substrate, so I poured some in a small container, and set it in the out world. They immediately started pouring out of the nest, and hauling the substrate back to their gardens.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[klawfran3]

That's so cool! Great job on the build, I'm glad they like it! When do you think you're gonna move the queen into this, if you haven't already?

[dspdrew]

I think the queen is probably already moved in. The only thing left of their old nest, is one container with a little fungus. They moved all the brood down in the new nest last night, and I don't see much of anything else in there.

[dspdrew]

Update 3-1-2016
 
The glass vase colony is completely moved into their new nest now. The old nest containers have been removed from the setup. They're now down to two main entrances to their nest. Their fungus gardens are looking really big and healthy. I've just been pouring the substrate into a little bowl for them, and they usually empty it out within a day or two.
 

 

 

 

[dspdrew]

Update 3-17-2016
 
Looks like these guys are pretty satisfied with their nests now, because some of the entrances (and I'm still pretty sure these nests are still not connected yet underground) have been closed up for a week. It just like what you see these do in the wild. They have five nest entrances, and only two of them have been open for the last week. Even with them open, there are no more than two workers outside the nest at a time. Down in the nest, I can see they're busy as can be working on their fungus gardens. They were emptying container after container of substrate, but since the nests have been closed up, they haven't really been taking much.
 

 

 

[dspdrew]

[dermy]

That looks crazy, I can only imagine how much larger they'll get by the end of this season!

[dspdrew]

What's crazy is they are only contained by a lip with Fluon. It's been holding them back for four months now.

[NightsWebs]

Sorry to say the pictures do not do this setup any justice!  The nest is amazing and the chamber clarity is unbelievable!  Great Job Drew thanks for showing me this setup.

[dspdrew]

Update 4-22-2016
 
Little did I know, both large colonies in the last picture I posted were slowly disposing of their fungus. The process sped up quite a bit when we got hit with a week-long heatwave and the temperature in the room was up around 97 degrees. According to Dr. Rebecca Clark, this is probably due to a pathogen, seeing how so many of the workers are trying to escape from the nest. By now both colonies have almost no fungus left.
 
I moved one of my new, smaller colonies out of an 8-chamber formicarium so I could upgrade it slightly and then move one of these large colonies into it. This should allow them to have somewhere clean to move to and hopefully start a new fungus garden. If all of the fungus dies, then I'll have to give them some fungus from another colony, and reduce their population by probably about 80 percent. Once they have moved, the formicarium they are in will be freed up so I can sterilize it and upgrade it as well. I'll then move the other sick colony into that one.
 
Here is what I have set up now for the first sick colony.
 

 
 
It seems all of the new, smaller colonies, and the large one living in the dirt vase are doing just fine, especially the one in the vase.

[dspdrew]

Update 5-15-2016
 

I got both of the sick colonies moved into freshly cleaned formicariums. I gave them both grape-sized pieces of healthy fungus from one of my other colonies.

 

One of the colonies immediately started taking care of it, and by now has grown it to about 1/3 the size of the fungus chamber. Interestingly, they seem to be feeding their fungus millet grits almost exclusively right now. Usually it's almost exclusively rose petals for most of them.

 

The other colony started taking care of their new fungus a little bit, but seemed to slow down until it didn't look like it was really growing anymore. Today I just found that colony's queen dead in the trash pile with a lot of dead workers as well.

 

All the other smaller colonies are still doing just fine.

[NightsWebs]

yeah its crazy how these do so well and then just stop.