29 replies to this topic

[Jonathan5608]

My n flavipes queen unexpectedly passed today an I’m struggling to understand why. I kept them in a a wakooshi founding formicarium(Mercury I think it was called or some planet) with a mix of zoo med clay burrowing substance and sand. About an inch below the bottom of the formicarium is a heat mat. The have been in there since July 22. I had two queens originally. One passed about a week after I moved them in. The one queen left was doing fine. There were about 30 or so workers. I provided a testube for water and sugar water. I gave them fruit flies and honey. The about a week ago they moved to the restive with water. I removed the testube with water course it looked a little strange. When I looked inside there was a mold outbreak and it looked like all most of the brood had mold. I removed the testube and checked twice today an I know noticed that my queen is dead. Did the mold kill her. Was it stress from removing the testube to often.

[That_one_ant_guy]

From what I've seen Nylanderia queen don't die too easily form stres so unless you were throwing her around, then she probably died from mold

[ANTdrew]

Mold may have done it. Any dirt nests should have springtails, and you should bake the substrate beforehand to prevent mold. In general, I’d advise against dirt setups.

[Jonathan5608]

Didn’t know mold was so deadly to ants. A little mold from a cricket that I forget to grab never effected my arachnids in any severe way.

[Serafine]

Uh, why is that water brown?

[ANTdrew]

Yeah, looking closely at that water, it seems bacteria poisoning the water is the problem.

[OiledOlives]

Yeah, looking closely at that water, it seems bacteria poisoning the water is the problem.

I've had water turn green, blue, yellow, orange, red, and pink with bacteria. All colonies are perfectly fine. White mold is the issue here.

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[dspdrew]

A lot of people assume mold killed their colonies, because the ants are covered in it when found, but honestly, I'll bet the majority of the time, the queen just died for unknown reasons (as they do all the time), and then the mold just grew on them. The ants constantly clean everything to keep it from molding, and once that stops, the mold takes over.

[RushmoreAnts]

True. Not trying to contradict your point, I totally agree, I just found it worth noting that sometimes colonies will be so attached to their queen that they continue to treat her as such after death, not immediately shredding her to bits and dumping her in the garbage pile. In this scenario though mold could still take root on the inside, which no longer regulates itself.

[Jonathan5608]

No it’s brown because I used brown sugar when I was making the sugar water

[Serafine]

Wait, so is this their nesting tube or just a food source in the outworld?

[ANTdrew]

No it’s brown because I used brown sugar when I was making the sugar water

Bingo. There’s your problem. It probably fermented a while ago plus super charged whatever molds were present.

[Jonathan5608]

No it’s brown because I used brown sugar when I was making the sugar water

Bingo. There’s your problem. It probably fermented a while ago plus super charged whatever molds were present.

The brown sugar was fermented?

Wait, so is this their nesting tube or just a food source in the outworld?

I put a sugar test tube in there for a sweet source

[That_one_ant_guy]

The ants will need a separate water and sugar source

[Jonathan5608]

The ants will need a separate water and sugar source

They do. The one for water is right behind the picture

[Jonathan5608]

So brown sugar is bad

[Serafine]

No, I've fed my ants brown sugar water in the past. They didn't like it that much but they didn't die.

(And i guess they just didn't like it because they were not used to it. My ants hate everything that isn't pure sugar water or diluted maple syrup.)

[Jonathan5608]

No, I've fed my ants brown sugar water in the past. They didn't like it that much but they didn't die.
(And i guess they just didn't like it because they were not used to it. My ants hate everything that isn't pure sugar water or diluted maple syrup.)

Perhaps it was in there for to long. How often do you replace your sugar water

[ANTdrew]

Wild occurring yeasts will start fermenting sugar water after about four days.

[T.C.]

There was individuals on discord talking about wakooshi nests killing their colonies. I have no idea how that's possible. On a side note was the water that color before the queen died? From my experience brown sugar doesn't turn water that color?

Edited by T.C., August 21 2022 - 1:51 PM.