5 replies to this topic

[Temperateants]

Hi all, my Tetramorium have decided to continuously rip chunks off of the water cotton, which resulted in flooding. The queen and brood were evacuated to safety, and a whole bunch of workers tried to rush out of the tube. The escapees are currently in another tube with moist cotton. They started moving almost immediately after I connected a new tube. I used a large light to disturb the old tube. Now, most of the workers and brood are in the new tube, as well as the queen, but maybe like 20% of the brood is still in the old tube, along with some dead/pretty inactive workers. I'm not sure what happened or what to do next.

• The stress of the light might have killed some of the workers? Unlikely, since Tetramorium are tough and the light was on for 3 hours max, I switched it off when I went to bed.
• The colony made the old tube their cemetery, and were just too lazy to move the rest of the brood?
• They exhausted themselves/starved when using a lot of energy to move the brood? Unlikely, I fed them 2 days ago and they had to move eggs a whole 2 inches.
• They left some brood behind as a "satellite nest"? One of my fears. The setup is currently 2 tubes connected via a vinyl tube, so obviously I can't have a "satellite nest". 

I'm considering moving the still alive workers and rest of the brood via Q-tip to the new tube, along with aforementioned escapees in the separate tube. Thoughts?

[AntsMaryland]

Oooof, yeah that's probs the best approach. Don't worry – I'm sure they'll make a speedy recovery! (They are Tetramorium after all…). 

[Temperateants]

Update: A lot of the workers managed to come back to life. The problem was actually a huge humidity buildup in the old tube. I trapped most of those "incapacitated" workers who were coming back to life with honey as a sort of "edible glue." I will be returning the escapees from the other tube to this tube. 

2 reasons:

First, the honey I used to trap the incapacitated workers should attract the returned escapees, minimizing further escaping, and with the added mouths to feed, hopefully the ants I trapped will soon be freed.

[RushmoreAnts]

Since most of the brood and the queen are in the new test tube, it would be alright to simply dump the rest of the workers and brood into the outworld.

[ANTdrew]

You still don’t have an outworld for them?

[Temperateants]

You still don’t have an outworld for them?

Unfortunately not, I cannot receive packages of any kind so no fluon, and I don't want to take chances with that DIY stuff. I've had negative experiences with oil and baby powder. Only hope of getting fluon is selling one of my listed GAN colonies, and using that money to pay back my parents for the feeders and then get the fluon.

Edited by Temperateants, July 20 2020 - 6:36 AM.