72 replies to this topic

[ryanp347]

Andrew said if the ants aren't bothered by it or trying to remove it then it probably won't effect them, so I'll go back to normal unless I see it getting out of hand.

[ryanp347]

Days 19-21

 

 

 

 

Ants! They've been doing lots of ant stuff!! And that's it for this weeks journal...not really.

 

They have been super busy! 

 

Since the last video they have started to add in new substrate to the fungus garden again. *happy dance*

 

This could be due to a few things I changed up such as cleaning out the outworld and adding new food, or giving them a new section to act as a garbage dump, but in reality it's probably a coincidence or they just needed more substrate. 

 

In the wild these ants are known to try to conserve the resources around them by not using too much of a single source over and over. This is why many of the keepers of these ants have noted that giving them a variety of items to choose from for the substrate increases the likelihood of success in the colony. 

 

So far, I have only fed them dried rose petals and gold fish pellets but soon I plan on adding a bunch of different items to see what works best for me. 

 

Aside from the new growth which was great to see after such a long period of time, there were also quite a few births! More golden boys to join the crew. Getting close to 20 at this point? I'll do a solid count of workers and eggs, larvae, pupae tomorrow. 

 

The algae is still growing but not at a rate that is alarming at all. 

 

 

I'm late to posting this week due to the holidays getting me off track but will try to be consistent again next week. Another post will follow this tomorrow with both the second half of the week and the full 2x time-lapse for the entire week so look forward to that!

 

Tomorrows update will also include a bunch of pictures.

Edited by ryanp347, December 30 2021 - 7:38 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Golden girls, right?

[ryanp347]

Golden girls, right?

Haha yes but I like boy just from the quote "stay golden ponyboy". Plus giving people something to correct makes for good engagement.

[ANTdrew]

Good Outsiders reference! You must’ve been a good English student. Tuff stuff!

[Antkeeper_21]

Certified English Moment

[PaigeX]

I legit just read this after I found out that Betty White passed away. From the "golden girls"

[ryanp347]

Week 4ish

 

 

 

 

I lost some footage! About half a weeks worth. I'm a bit disappointed because it was a great video that showed the two sides of the fungus column finally touch. Booooo. Pretty sure I figured out what caused it to happen and I've been more careful since then.

 

Lots has happened. As mentioned before, the top and bottom parts of the fungus garden have grown together and it is really started to get thick with white, fluffy growth. 

 

There has been a bit of a cutback on brood size but still a good amount and lots of workers currently. Haven't done a count in a bit, mainly because these ants decided they wanted some privacy and have started to completely cover the fungus chamber with dirt, but I would guess there are around 20 now. The footage is also a bit covered but at this point I can't do much about it without destroying part of the fungus garden. So unless they completely cover it I'll leave it be for now until I need to do maintenance or add in a new section.

 

This time-lapse covers week 4...ish and we'll just use that as the official time because I'm lazy and it's easy this way.

 

After a month of watching these ants grow their fungus garden I've become more and more entranced with the way they all work together to change its shape over time. It started out as a blob on the ground but once they had enough substrate built up with fungus they started to hang it from the ceiling and form this column structure.

 

At one point a lot of the fungus started looking a bit gray and their wasn't a lot of new growth but now it's pure white floof again. 

 

Thanks for watching and reading! I'll try to put together a time-lapse that covers the first month soon. Should I speed it up a bunch so that it stays around 3 and a half minutes for the whole thing or would a longer video be a better idea? Let me know what you think.

 

Also if you haven't already please subscribe to my YouTube! It'll definitely provide me with more motivation to keep this up and is greatly appreciated. 

[ryanp347]

They also definitely started using the dump! At first they completely sealed it with dirt but shortly after they opened a small hole and started to explore. Now they go in and out of it often! Definitely doesn't look like any garbage is going to the outworld either. Glad I didn't waste my time.

 

Oh ya my power went out in the room towards the end of the video too! They got a bit cold over night because the heater cut off as well but no harm no foul.

Edited by ryanp347, January 13 2022 - 6:12 PM.

[dspdrew]

Interesting to see their entire operation of filling in the cracks around the connectors with dirt.

[Crazycow]

Update?


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[NancyZamora4991]

Update?

[ryanp347]

I abruptly stopped updating this journal because the queen unfortunately kicked the bucket out of nowhere. It was really sad to see. Slowly died over the course of a week while the workers did everything they could to keep her going. Constantly grooming and moving her around, but in the end she died. The workers persisted on their own for almost 8 months while the fungus garden slowly shrank. The following season (around October of 2022 I purchased several queens and tried my best to get one of them to accept the workers and existing fungus but it didn't work out. After that I tried to get a colony established again and unfortunately all 3 of them died with only one of them successfully founding and developing around a golf ball sized chunk of fungus with several workers. When one of the other queens died I tried adding her fungus to the colony that successfully founded and within a week the fungus began developing brown spots similar to what I have seen in one of Andrews earlier Acromyrmex journals. She died within 2-3 days after this. The colonies were all in an incubator kept at exactly 77 degrees and I can't think of anything that went wrong so I'll chalk it up to bad luck for now. I have several other species of ants that I am currently keeping and plan on doing journals for whenever I get some time. Sorry for dropping off the face of the Earth with no explanation! 

 

PS I still have MONTHS of time-lapse footage of the first Acromyrmex colony as it kept itself alive without a queen and slowly died off. I will get around to editing and posting that up eventually as well.