11 replies to this topic

[dboeren]

This is starting to get annoying.  I've been using a byFormica liquid feeder for some time to deliver sugar water for my colony living in a Tarheel Mini-Hearth.

 

Several times recently they have stuffed debris in the feeder ports which causes the sugar water to all leak out onto the "ground" of their outworld and necessitate cleanup.  I've already moved the feeder as far as possible from their nest tunnel per suggestions earlier.

 

This morning I found their feeder empty again and I can see the ground shiny & wet but I don't see the usual debris clogging the feeder ports so it's not clear what caused it to leak.  Do byFormica feeders have a short lifetime and need to be replaced?  Is there anything else I can do to try to keep it from leaking?  I have another liquid feeder I got from Tarheel with a mesh screen and "moat" so maybe I should switch to that one?  I initially used it for just water but it was so large that I replaced it with the byFormica one.

 

It may be possible that I'm not cleaning out the debris well enough?  What I do is rinse everything out under a faucet, use a toothpick to clean out all the feeder ports, rinse again, let it dry, and refill it.  I usually get a small black glob of gunk out of each feeder port.  While not sparkling clean, I do visually check each port to make sure it looks clear before refilling it.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I've had two situatons of this with my pogonomyrmex occidentalis.

 

1: once the colonyn was big nough, they started draining out any dispensers (water or sugarwater) that were too close to their nest entrance. I have alwasy had a lot of outworld, and once i moved the dispenser out of the mini hearth outworld, into a farther from the a nest exit outworld space, they stopped doing this. But they will do it anytime i place one close enogh to their nest exit space.

 

 

 

2: a partcular type of dispenser. i stared with these(byFormica brand, formatting is wonky, can't resize hotlink images on the fly here)

but later bought someof these

 

 

and the ants drain that 2nd dispenser every time no matter where i put it or what is in it. Within about 1-2 hours it'll be packed with bits of dirt and they've chanelled all the water out of it. I stopped using them.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 14 2024 - 9:23 AM.

[ChenZ]

Based on my personal experience, it's largely depends on the behavior of the colony. Some of my colonies (like the Novomessor) use the liquid feeder properly but some of the others always drain the feeder. For those colonies I just feed them with cotton-testube set up.

[AntsTx]

For most of my colonies I just place a cotton ball with sugar water or some other liquid in it for the ants. It's much easier and doesn't cost money for the feeders.

[ANTdrew]

Airborne yeasts will eventually cause sugar water to ferment into alcohol. When this happens, carbon dioxide is released and the pressure forces the liquid out of the bottom. Hummingbird nectar or byFormica Sunburst have preservatives in them to prevent this from happening. Annoying ants can still cause flooding in other ways, though.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

For most of my colonies I just place a cotton ball with sugar water or some other liquid in it for the ants. It's much easier and doesn't cost money for the feeders.

just say'n on that, cotton balls are not free for most people of the world. That is a consumable you keep using up. Dispensers are reused over and over and over again, bringing their life time cost of ownership down as time goes on. While cotton ball costs will only ever continue to add up as you use them up.

I think dispenser are also particularly important if you are ever going to go on vacation and leave the ants unattended for periods of time, where a cotton ball would dry up too soon and need replacing.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 27 2024 - 10:21 AM.

[AntsGodzilla]

I use THA feeders https://tarheelants....l-liquid-feeder

[rptraut]

Hello dboeren;

I hope this helps.

 

Waterers are a convenient way to provide water to small colonies and small ants in particular.  Unfortunately, these are the very ants that sometimes have difficulty reaching the water or wind-up drowning in it when they do.  For a while I solved this problem by putting small pieces of cotton in the base before screwing in the water bottle.  Pictured below is the newest way I'm making it safer for small ants by putting a piece of paper towel over the water bottle and then screwing the base on tightly.  Then I pull away the excess paper towel.  Unscrew the bottle from the base 1/4 turn to let air in.  I squirt some water in the openings in the base to help the ants get the water idea and it's ready to go.  Don't worry if there's some towel sticking out the top, water will wick up and small ants can drink safely there too.  

 

 

 

I copied the above from another post of mine because it shows how I assemble all my waterers.   This method has a number of advantages for protection of small ants; it also allows you to slow the rate at which water will flow out of the waterer.    Water can't flow freely out the holes of the waterer because of the paper towel, and that flow can actually be regulated by the amount of air that gets into the waterer to replace the water that's gone out.   Allow more air in and more water will go out.   When I screw the bottom onto the paper towel covered bottle, I screw it on finger tight, remove the excess towel, and then unscrew the base enough to let in some air.    One quarter turn open is enough to let air in and water out, but it'll be restricted so it's less likely to be drained out quickly by problem ants.    Some ants will chew holes in the towel, but they're doing that because they want more water, and it doesn't flood.  

 

I use both waterers and test tubes for my ants.   The waterers are used mostly in small formicaria for small colonies.   Problem colonies only get test tubes.   As a colony gets larger, they'll use enough water that a test tube is more practical.   Test tubes are available in a multitude of sizes, I use them for sugar/water and water, with a cotton stopper.    Every colony has a test tube of water, large or small, even though they may have a waterer as well.   This comes in handy for vacation as they're familiar with the test tube for water so less problems adapting.   A colony should never run out of water.

 

 

 

For this colony I have a large waterer in the center and a test tube of water laying on top at the back.   The tube mounted out front is actually a bottle meant for storing beads; it also very conveniently fits snugly over half inch tubing!   I give them sugar/water in that bottle.  I can prepare a replacement bottle ahead and slip the empty bottle off, full bottle on, job done.   

 

Since I took this picture, I've added a second bottle out front with water in it.   Another advantage of this setup is that I can tip the closed end of the bottle down, so the water is touching the cotton, but it's on enough of an angle the water won't flood out.   You can do the same with any test tube, tip it enough with the open end upwards so water can't run out and then let them fill it with as much crap as they like.    Some colonies just aren't sophisticated enough for a waterer and a test tube is your best option.      Good Luck

RPT

[dboeren]

Pictured below is the newest way I'm making it safer for small ants by putting a piece of paper towel over the water bottle and then screwing the base on tightly.  Then I pull away the excess paper towel.  Unscrew the bottle from the base 1/4 turn to let air in.  I squirt some water in the openings in the base to help the ants get the water idea and it's ready to go.  Don't worry if there's some towel sticking out the top, water will wick up and small ants can drink safely there too.  

 

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion, my ants drained all their sugar water again so I just made up a new batch using the paper towel method and I'm trying it now.  Fingers crossed that this will solve the issue.  They do seem to like drinking from the paper towel wicking too, the feeder is covered with ants trying to get some.  What happens if you don't unscrew it a little to let the air in?

[Mushu]

Sometimes it’s just the colony. One of my colonies drain water more than the other, with both place in the same spot of the xxl mini hearth outworld.

In a mini hearth you can only try to put it further away, however I prefer to put it not at the very ends or corners but close to the end of the mini hearth, as they usually dump trash in the far corners/ends and may decide the feeder is part of the trash area, if you only have the mini hearth outworld.

A 16 oz water bottle cap fits the base of the byformica perfectly and I use it as a failsafe in case they try to drain. However I have had zero issues with draining when it’s in the large outworld. Even in the mini hearth my nectar was not drained.

Ever since it got really hot and using an off brand shorter 5 ml liquid feeder for water, I’ve had leaks. I tried to add cotton to the base without sticking out but it’s hard to tell if the ants can reach the water and if it’s wicking it enough, so now my thought is to perhaps use steel mesh at the base, makes it harder to drain.


One last thing check if any part of the support pillars of the base that connects to the top(screw top) part has gotten loose. I’ve had that happen for one of my Byformica feeders and that leaks easier as I tested with water to see if it would. I just epoxied it together but still haven’t used it again yet.

Edited by Mushu, September 6 2024 - 7:48 AM.

[dboeren]

I just hooked up their new home, moving from a Mini-Hearth into a Labyrinth which gives me a much bigger outworld to put the feeder farther away from the nest.  Between that and the paper towel filter I'm hoping I have it solved.  I'll look into the 16oz bottle cap though, that sounds like a good backup plan.

[rptraut]

 

Pictured below is the newest way I'm making it safer for small ants by putting a piece of paper towel over the water bottle and then screwing the base on tightly.  Then I pull away the excess paper towel.  Unscrew the bottle from the base 1/4 turn to let air in.  I squirt some water in the openings in the base to help the ants get the water idea and it's ready to go.  Don't worry if there's some towel sticking out the top, water will wick up and small ants can drink safely there too.  

 

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion, my ants drained all their sugar water again so I just made up a new batch using the paper towel method and I'm trying it now.  Fingers crossed that this will solve the issue.  They do seem to like drinking from the paper towel wicking too, the feeder is covered with ants trying to get some.  What happens if you don't unscrew it a little to let the air in?

 

 

Hello dboeren;

 

I'm sure you'll find the paper towel will slow the flow of liquid and reduce the potential for it flooding out of the feeder, if the bottom feeder is unscrewed properly from the bottle.    

 

I can always tell when I haven't unscrewed the bottom the recommended quarter turn when the liquid doesn't flow out of the feeder.    I can tell because after a day or two there's no air bubble at the top, or it doesn't get any bigger.   When the liquid flows properly, you'll see an air bubble at the top which gets bigger as the ants drink the liquid.   When the bottom is screwed on tight, the wet paper towel acts like a rubber washer, sealing around the edges so water and air can't pass through.   The wet paper towel is dense enough that it's difficult for air to pass through it, which it has to do, if air is going to replace any liquid that passes through the paper towel going the other way.    This increase in resistance compared to no resistance, which is what you have with no paper towel, means it's also more difficult for ants to suck the fluid from the paper towel.   

 

Unscrewing the bottle from the bottom creates a space for air to leak into the bottle and replace the removed liquid.   The more you open the leak the more air is allowed to enter the bottle.   You can restrict the amount of liquid that is dispensed in this way.    Even if ants pile crud against the feeder, you can unscrew the bottom just enough to release the amount of water they would drink in a day.    Unscrewing a quarter turn is my usual setting but unscrew it more or less until you're satisfied.   It shouldn't be too wet under the feeder, but the ants should be able to get all the liquid they want without undue restriction.   

 

Of course, all bets are off if there's a hole in the paper towel.   I have had Tetramorium ants chew holes in the paper towel, but they are the only ones of mine that have done that.    A hole in the towel lets air in unrestricted and acts like there's no paper towel there at all.   I think the reason they chewed the holes was because they weren't getting the liquid fast enough, so flooding wasn't a problem.

 

Recently I've been offering my small colonies sugar/water that has a higher sugar to water ratio.    I've been feeding a starter colony of my bees sugar/water that I make by dissolving as much sugar in hot water as I can.    I'm not sure of the ratio, it might be one part sugar to two parts water, or even less water.   I feed some of my ants granular sugar and they love it.   They also like the higher sugar content of my bee feed.    What I'm suggesting is that if you have ants that can't seem to get enough sugar/water, maybe they just want more sugar.   I've only tried this sugar syrup with my small founding colonies; I hope it gives them a little boost before diapause.  

RPT