306 replies to this topic

[Antkeeper01]

He's on discord soooo

[Chickalo]

You're probably right, my math is horrible.  Breaking the stereotype, ammiright?  If he is back, then he has no viable reason to not post about his Atta, so Cheeto hmu with some mega monday mexicana update in a few days, okay?

[Antkeeper_21]

15 pages of pure enjoyment 

[NicholasP]

Cheeto might've actually discontinued the journal...   Hopefully not though. I'm not making any claims that he has.

Edited by NicholasP, January 2 2022 - 5:35 PM.

[CheetoLord02]

I'll do a quick no-pictures update for y'all.

I was out of town for 2 and a half weeks over the holidays and honestly just haven't really felt like updating my journals.

Pretty shortly after the last update, I decided to start controlling the population of my Atta colony by reducing the amount of food I was offering. The colony was just getting far too large, and I wanted to focus more of my time and energy on my Pheidole rhea instead. This did work, although not exactly in the way I intended. I failed to consider that with large Atta colonies food = water, and so by substantially reducing feedings I also substantially reduced the amount of moisture entering the setup... and several of the fungus chambers dried out. Essentially all but the main two chambers completely dried out and all of the fungus within died.

Thankfully the two chambers left were the only two the queen had ever been in, so I knew she was fine, and now the colony was much more tame. I watered the chambers for the first time since I first assembled the setup, and decided to start feeding them a bit more again. Since then the colony has done well, and while the expanded sections of the nest are still a ghost town, it has made keeping this colony quite a bit more painless.

Either way, the Atta are definitely not at their former glory; probably 20-30k workers compared to the previous >100k, but this is really not a bad thing for me. I'll try to keep you all updated if anything changes, but honestly expect this colony to be pretty stagnant for a while. Maybe eventually I'll redo their setup to be much more escape proof; If I do, be sure that you'll see it.

[CheetoLord02]

I'm back!


All in all there isn't a whole lot to update on here, but what the heck. Here's the Atta status update you've all been waiting for!

So far, the fungus and overall colony size is still roughly the same. They have their main two chambers that are quite full of fungus - not completely, but pretty close. 
 

 

 

They've also started to put fungus back in some of their secondary chambers, which is both exciting and terrifying. On one hand, I think I'm ready to grow out the colony a bit again. At the same time, I know exactly what that entails, and have a distinct feeling that I am going to regret that decision. I guess we'll see.

One further interesting thing is that while they were beginning to build in the new chamber last night, the queen decided to stop in and say hi. Which is insanely weird, as if you've kept up with this journal you know that she's never left their primary two chambers - and for good reason! Their secondary chambers are separated by a good 3 feet of tubing! I have no idea why or even how she got down there, but by this morning she had returned back to the 2nd of the main 2 chambers, and seems to be completely healthy. Just queens being weird as always, I guess.

 

So... remember how I said I was going to be re-doing the Atta's setup? Well... here's how that's going:
 

 

 

Yeah... it all started when the Atta breached their fluon barrier in the secondary outworld... And I was out of fluon. So I placed it on a riser (an empty Taco Bell cup) inside the original outworld. Then they breached the barrier in the vine bridge starting point... and I was still out of fluon. So I put that in the original outworld as well.

Well, I'm still out of fluon. Because BioQuip shut down, I really don't know where else to get fluon from that isn't grossly inflated in price. I have started to make the switch to using Talcum powder barriers, but I still kinda suck at applying them, so I'll need more practice before I commit to using it on the new Atta setup, whenever I do decide to actually work on that. Thankfully the fluon in the original outworld is still holding strong... somehow... so I guess I'm in the clear for the time being. I've also been feeding the Atta more, which has kept them more content and not trying to escape constantly.

[M_Ants]

Looks great! Do you have to do anything to keep the temperature safe for the fungus?

[CheetoLord02]

Looks great! Do you have to do anything to keep the temperature safe for the fungus?

Air conditioning.

Seriously though, it really never gets outside of the safe temperature range for them in my house. Anything that's dangerous for the fungus is also just uncomfortable for me, so it usually doesn't get to that point. However, if need be, and I have done this before, filling the tops of the chamber lids with water will give a swamp cooling effect and lower the temperature inside the chambers. (Note this only works because I live in a very dry climate, your mileage may vary)

[AntsCali098]

Update???

[ANTdrew]

I don’t think he’s updating journals anymore, unfortunately.

[NicholasP]

Hail to the CheetoLord.

[AntsCali098]

I don’t think he’s updating journals anymore, unfortunately.

Oof. I binge-read this journal today, probably the best I've read.

[B_rad0806]

They died

[United-Ants]

They died

what? rip atta mexicana 2020-2022

Edited by United-Ants, October 25 2022 - 7:21 AM.

[NicholasP]

 

They died

what? rip atta mexicana 2020-2022

 

I can confirm they died too. I just never said it.

[United-Ants]

 

 

They died

what? rip atta mexicana 2020-2022

 

I can confirm they died too. I just never said it.

 

how did they die?

[ZTYguy]

They died

what? rip atta mexicana 2020-2022

I can confirm they died too. I just never said it.

how did they die?

It’s a long story but overheating.

[United-Ants]

 

 

 

 

They died

what? rip atta mexicana 2020-2022

I can confirm they died too. I just never said it.

how did they die?

It’s a long story but overheating.

 

dang over heating sucks i loved this colony 

[Ant-nig321]

So far so good ,
I am loving this journal

Sent from my TECNO BD4h using Tapatalk

[Jonathan5608]

They died? When. Where did he say that. They were featured on his Chanel six months ago.