8 replies to this topic

[futurebird]

When you have a large healthy colony even the biggest outworlds, even adding two outworlds can't quite eliminate the issue of loitering ants. Basically, you'll have a number of ants that just hang out in the outworld. Not foraging, not exploring. Mostly just resting until the next hunk of dubia or fruit chunk shows up. And why not? From the ants perspective the outworld is just an overly bright, slightly less humid, mildly drafty nest. There are hardly ever any scary predators or attacking neighbor colonies. Why not just sit on the rock?

But, without the distinction between "outside" and "inside" ants miss out (and we miss out on watching) natural behaviors like signaling. No ant ever needs to run to get everyone from the nest when good food shows up. They are already there. 

Loitering ants are also a problem for feeding and cleaning. Have you ever *dreaded* opening a particular outworld because they are on the walls, the lid everywhere?

Though, several of my colonies had a mild case of this problem the nicos are by far the worst. They have a massive nest. It's half full. They have two entrances to said nest. At last I relented and put a small wooden nest in their outworld hoping most of them would at least go inside ... But no, while a few took advantage literally 100s of ant were content to just loiter. And every time I had to change the water or food or clean I'd have an escape crisis on my hands. Yes I have fluon. Yes the outworld is large. They are just a big colony.

I started thinking about air circulation. The out world has two big mesh holes in the lid, which is pretty good-- but what if I tried a fan? 

I bought a fan designed for reptiles and orchid on amazon. 

Placed it on the lid on a medium setting. The ants didn't seem bothered, but I decided to wait. 

A few hours later? Just about everyone was inside of the nest. They were even removing trash to make more space!

There are still a lot of ants in the outworld but they are mostly doing things, like drinking nectar and collecting food. I think it went from something like 300-400 ants loitering... to about 70-100. 

The breeze from this fan is very mild but it's enough to keep the humidity and temp a little lower. The ants have and "outside" again! and I no longer dread cleaning and feeding them since I don't feel like I'm opening part of their nest when I do. 

 

[Miles]

That's a great idea! We use this in larger-scale exhibits, but it's very uncommon in the ant keeping hobby. Mind providing a link to the fan you used? Would love to see a picture of the setup...

[NicholasP]

The main problem with this is that it seems detrimental to a colony with just nanitic's ability to find food. I have seen this time and time again even a slight breeze and they run back inside. Now if the colony had like 50 workers, then I'd say sure why the heck not because at that point they're not as shy as before but also let's go into the fact that buying fans for each colony would be very expensive. I like the idea for medium sized and larger colonies since the fan if it's a small fan like for a CPU used for video surveillance servers would take up little space in comparison to the nest and give quite a breeze. Also, a constant breeze would not be good since in the wild wind speeds will vary greatly. Plains will have usually 5-15 mph winds but in the forests, it would be much less because of the trees. So, I'd recommend seeing if you can get the fan speed to vary constantly.

Edited by NicholasP, September 24 2022 - 4:17 PM.

[futurebird]

This is the fan:

 

https://www.amazon.c...2?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It provides a nice gentle breeze. Just enough to keep the outworld feeling like "outside"

And this isn't at all needed for small colonies. The loitering problem only seems to happen with big colonies that grow confident and no longer have any fear of "outside" -- Small colonies tend to be very cautious and scared to go out and quick to hide. Mostly, it's only worth getting a fan if you have a problem as I did with too many ants in the outworld making feeding and cleaning nearly impossible. Now that they are mostly inside I've been able to clean their tank and feeding will be easier. I'm a little fanatical about keeping outworlds clean and presentable. I hate to see insect parts and junk laying around. 

And I really do think it's better for them behavior -wise. When they start living in the outworld full time they become like a house full of lazy college students who sleep in the living room and have free pizza delivered every other day. Disgusting. LOL 

[ANTdrew]

This is brilliant. I may need to try this with my Pheidole, which literally have 2k tiny ants outworld-loitering at all times. Our “outworlds” are not outside in an ant’s mind.

[Locness]

You can also purchase an outlet timer for the fan. I use this one for my converted class cabinet where I house demanding tropical plants:  https://www.amazon.c...8-2-spons&psc=1

Allows for as little as 30 min intervals. There are even outlet timers that connect to wifi. I have timers for my fans, humidifier, and lighting system, which I can totally see adapted to an outworld setting as well. 

[NicholasP]

This is brilliant. I may need to try this with my Pheidole, which literally have 2k tiny ants outworld-loitering at all times. Our “outworlds” are not outside in an ant’s mind.

Use it for your Crematogaster!

[ANTdrew]

This is brilliant. I may need to try this with my Pheidole, which literally have 2k tiny ants outworld-loitering at all times. Our “outworlds” are not outside in an ant’s mind.

Use it for your Crematogaster!

I will, but the colony is tiny now.

[Serafine]

All i had to do to make my ants not use their outworld as a nest/staging post was removing the blanket.

They really really don't like light.

Edited by Serafine, September 25 2022 - 4:06 AM.