5 replies to this topic

[Zhuge]

Hello everyone! I got a Tetramorium colony from stateside ants today. They came in great shape with only 1 dead worker. Their diet will be Chia seeds, sugar water, and fruitflies.

2/27/25

The colony has about 25-30 workers and a decent pile of brood. I will soon house them in a larger formicarium. Pictures coming soon!

[Zhuge]

3/1/2025
Pictures! They are not the best though. The colony has like 30ish workers and are eating the seeds they came with and the almond I gave them. They are very active, and they have switched nesting chambers recently. The first and third pictures are of their new chamber and the second one is of the old chamber. Thanks for reading!

[ANTdrew]

The nest looks too big for a colony of that size.

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

The nest looks too big for a colony of that size.

AntDrew is mentioning this because if the nest is too big they can get stressed and leave their trash around the nest, like in the photo, which has a risk of moulding, you should move them back to a test tube and move them back to the nest when it looks like they occupy most of the nest. Personally I’d give move them to a bigger nest when they occupy 40-60% of the nest depending on the growth rate (how fast the will fill out the nest)

[Zhuge]

The nest looks too big for a colony of that size.

Yea it is kind of big but I think they will be fine because the tunnels are very small and i think they will grow to fill the nest in a couple of months.

[Zhuge]

 

The nest looks too big for a colony of that size.

AntDrew is mentioning this because if the nest is too big they can get stressed and leave their trash around the nest, like in the photo, which has a risk of moulding, you should move them back to a test tube and move them back to the nest when it looks like they occupy most of the nest. Personally I’d give move them to a bigger nest when they occupy 40-60% of the nest depending on the growth rate (how fast the will fill out the nest)

 

Yes the stress is kind of a problem but I have springtails that I can use for cleaning things up. I will try to move them back to the test tube though.