23 replies to this topic

[Mirandarachnid]

My ants arrived today!

I ordered them from Antgear, along with the “ant den”, some dandelion seeds, and a liquid feeder (which didn’t seem to make it in the box, but hopefully they send that out soon).

I’m counting 9 workers so far, but it looks like there will be more fairly soon.

They’re so cute and little compared to the monster harvester ants we have around here, which I’m assuming are Pogonomyrmex barbatus.

I dumped them in the out world, and they moved into the nest within 7 hours or so.

I didn’t have time to make a liquid feeder for them, so I put a wet cotton ball on top of the rock in their outworld so that they would have some drinking water. Hopefully I get time to make a liquid feeder for them tomorrow.

(Also, I know the heat cable is not supposed to cross over itself, it was only like that momentarily.)

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[Invix]

Oh nice I’ll buy one too! Never heard of that website!

[ANTdrew]

Nice setup there. You may want to fashion a cover for the nest part depending on how sensitive they are to light.

[Mirandarachnid]

Nice setup there. You may want to fashion a cover for the nest part depending on how sensitive they are to light.

I plan on making a little cardboard cover. For now I have a nip of fabric on top.

I’m thinking about a slightly larger outworld. If only so I can fit a liquid feeder for more reliable access to water.

[AsdinAnts]

any type of pogonomyrmex is fascinating! can’t wait to see this colony rise!

[JesseTheAntKid]

I can't wait to see this colony grow. Hope they do well!

[100lols]

The issue with my Pogonomyrmex is they all drain their water in liquid feeders using dirt!

[Mirandarachnid]

The issue with my Pogonomyrmex is they all drain their water in liquid feeders using dirt!

Hopefully I get a chance to make them a liquid feeder after the youngest ant enthusiast in the house goes to sleep.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

Welcome on and i hope you enjoy ant keeping as much as i am.
I also keep pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Got my colony in March with about 28, and they are somewhere over 200, maybe close to 300+ now.

 

A few things i discovered:

 

1: Mine acclimate to whatever light/dark they get consistently. They live in top down view nests with no cover and near by overhead lighting for the outworlds. Maybe 50/50 medium lit / light shadows situation going on. With a day/night light timer, they don't freak out in the mornings when the "sun" comes on.

 

2: they seem to not like exposed water too near their nest and will commonly plug up or drain water dispensers. Far enough awawy from the nest they occasionally drain a water dispenser, maybe 1/10 or so. I had someone come by to check on their drinking water when i took a trip.

 

3: as creatures that see more by smell, if you can keep an open air outworld (fluon/anti-climb barrier) it will more likely convince them it is outside. Originally mine treated their outworld as nest. But it was outside to them, once i had enough outworld space/nest space ratio, and most importantly, it was open air top.

 

have fun.

[AsdinAnts]

I’ve tried pogonomyrmex before, but I didn’t have the tools I needed to replicate their habitat, so ultimately, they died.

[Mirandarachnid]

Welcome on and i hope you enjoy ant keeping as much as i am.
I also keep pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Got my colony in March with about 28, and they are somewhere over 200, maybe close to 300+ now.

A few things i discovered:

1: Mine acclimate to whatever light/dark they get consistently. They live in top down view nests with no cover and near by overhead lighting for the outworlds. Maybe 50/50 medium lit / light shadows situation going on. With a day/night light timer, they don't freak out in the mornings when the "sun" comes on.

2: they seem to not like exposed water too near their nest and will commonly plug up or drain water dispensers. Far enough awawy from the nest they occasionally drain a water dispenser, maybe 1/10 or so. I had someone come by to check on their drinking water when i took a trip.

3: as creatures that see more by smell, if you can keep an open air outworld (fluon/anti-climb barrier) it will more likely convince them it is outside. Originally mine treated their outworld as nest. But it was outside to them, once i had enough outworld space/nest space ratio, and most importantly, it was open air top.

have fun.

Thanks! I read through your entire journal while waiting for mine to arrive. I really enjoyed seeing the progression of your colony.

Mine seem to be doing well, they alternate between having the brood under the heat cable or right on top of the water reservoir. There is a new clutch of eggs that a worker is usually carrying around.

I gave them some ground flax, which they really appreciated. They don’t seem interested in the chia seeds at all. I’ve been making sure to keep the cotton ball in their outworld saturated, I really hope that’s good enough for drinking water for the time being. I should be able to make a liquid feeder for them tomorrow. They aren’t stashing seeds inside the nest at all, just bringing pieces in to feed the brood as needed.

They seem to have established a trash pile, and there’s one dead/crumpled up looking pupa that they keep moving back and forth between the trash pile and the nest.

One new worker has eclosed, it’s fairly large compared to the others but I noticed that another worker was giving one of it’s front legs a lot of attention, and then I realized that leg appears to be shorter than the others, causing it to stumble a bit when walking around.

I have a lovely acrylic box I’m going to use for their next outworld. It has a nice clear lid and I’m going to cut the middle out of it, leaving about a one inch lip. Hopefully I can start on that tomorrow as well. It depends on if I can convince my husband to bust out the scroll saw.

[ANTdrew]

A wood burning tool with a blade attachment is the cheapest and easiest way to cut holes through acrylic. Do the melting outside, though! The rounded attachments work great for fusing mesh on to the acrylic as well. Mine cost me $15 at Hobby Lobby.

[Mirandarachnid]

A wood burning tool with a blade attachment is the cheapest and easiest way to cut holes through acrylic. Do the melting outside, though! The rounded attachments work great for fusing mesh on to the acrylic as well. Mine cost me $15 at Hobby Lobby.

Thanks for that. I love the idea of not having to use my kitchen to make water towers. What an elegant solution.

[Mirandarachnid]

A few workers have died in the last couple of days, but they were some of the smallest ones, so I’m assuming they were nanitics. It does worry me a bit. Although I’m counting 10-11 workers, so with new workers eclosing at least the number isn’t going down. I’m wondering if they need more heat? They’ve been consistently trying to get as close to the heat cable as possible, even crawling onto the ceiling of the nest and hanging out right under it. I think I’ll move their setup into a larger tank and arrange the heat cable in that to try and raise the ambient heat around the nest as well as having the heat cable on part of it.

I noticed that the dead workers were being fed to the larvae, so I gave them a bit of a superworm. They moved it a bit, but I’m not sure how much they were eating it. They rolled up some ground flax seed into ball and brought it into the nest, but they took it back into the outworld before long.

Their new outworld is about ready, I’m just waiting for the perfect cast I poured in the bottom to feel dry. The cotton ball was starting to mold where a seed was stuck to it, so I replaced it with a bit of saturated sphagnum moss. The liquid feeders should be here soon. They were supposed to arrive today but they’re running late.

I did see a couple of cool things though. I saw the queen lay an egg, and I’ve seen the workers jump!

[Mirandarachnid]

Okay, here’s the new heating setup. I have them in a 10 gallon tank with the heat cable draped over the walls. I moved the heat cable to a different spot of the nest to knock out the condensation that was forming, and after a couple of hours they hadn’t moved their brood to follow the heat like they were doing before, so they seem happier, temperature wise.

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[ANTdrew]

That will work very well.

[Mirandarachnid]

The liquid feeders arrived, and as soon as I put it in the outworld, they started filling it with sand.

I swapped in the new outworld and put the water as far as I could from the entrance to their nest so they will hopefully stop putting stuff in it.

I’m going to chill with the changes now and let them do their thing.

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[Mirandarachnid]

They’ve been working on plugging up the nest entrance.

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[100lols]

Awesome idea to use the heating cable in the 10 gal to raise their ambient temp. I’m noticing a lot more die offs in my Pogonomyrmex colonies with colder temperatures as well. Probably normal.

Let us know how your liquid feeder does in that setup… I’m using dirt box setups for my colonies so there is no hope for their liquid feeders imo.

Thanks for the updates!!!

[Invix]

Welcome on and i hope you enjoy ant keeping as much as i am.
I also keep pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Got my colony in March with about 28, and they are somewhere over 200, maybe close to 300+ now.

A few things i discovered:

1: Mine acclimate to whatever light/dark they get consistently. They live in top down view nests with no cover and near by overhead lighting for the outworlds. Maybe 50/50 medium lit / light shadows situation going on. With a day/night light timer, they don't freak out in the mornings when the "sun" comes on.

2: they seem to not like exposed water too near their nest and will commonly plug up or drain water dispensers. Far enough awawy from the nest they occasionally drain a water dispenser, maybe 1/10 or so. I had someone come by to check on their drinking water when i took a trip.

3: as creatures that see more by smell, if you can keep an open air outworld (fluon/anti-climb barrier) it will more likely convince them it is outside. Originally mine treated their outworld as nest. But it was outside to them, once i had enough outworld space/nest space ratio, and most importantly, it was open air top.

have fun.

Thanks! I read through your entire journal while waiting for mine to arrive. I really enjoyed seeing the progression of your colony.

Mine seem to be doing well, they alternate between having the brood under the heat cable or right on top of the water reservoir. There is a new clutch of eggs that a worker is usually carrying around.

I gave them some ground flax, which they really appreciated. They don’t seem interested in the chia seeds at all. I’ve been making sure to keep the cotton ball in their outworld saturated, I really hope that’s good enough for drinking water for the time being. I should be able to make a liquid feeder for them tomorrow. They aren’t stashing seeds inside the nest at all, just bringing pieces in to feed the brood as needed.

They seem to have established a trash pile, and there’s one dead/crumpled up looking pupa that they keep moving back and forth between the trash pile and the nest.

One new worker has eclosed, it’s fairly large compared to the others but I noticed that another worker was giving one of it’s front legs a lot of attention, and then I realized that leg appears to be shorter than the others, causing it to stumble a bit when walking around.

I have a lovely acrylic box I’m going to use for their next outworld. It has a nice clear lid and I’m going to cut the middle out of it, leaving about a one inch lip. Hopefully I can start on that tomorrow as well. It depends on if I can convince my husband to bust out the scroll saw.

I think you should have the Pogonomyrmex in light for better viewing