37 replies to this topic

[Saftron]

Sadly a killer fungus that killed Drew and antmans colonies has gotten into the inception chamber, I cleaned it out and hydrogen peroxided the whole outworld. I am trying to get them to move but I am very scared these guys will die. If they do I will probably quit ant keeping so hopefully they survive!

[Kevin]

I don't see why that would make you quit. Colonies die all the time, occasionally things like these happen. I think yours will survive, however.

[Saftron]

1st colony, they have really grown to me. Spent so much time, effort, and money into these guys and they are my favorite and largest colony.

[Leo]

my first colony died when i had about the same amount of workers as yours, it was my biggest at the time but I'm still here

[ant fan]

I have 2 colonies of the same and they just don't stop growing.

Nice pics here - hope everything turned out ok for you...

[Nathant2131]

Are they doing ok?

[Saftron]

Yes they are but they are growing slower because I have stopped heating them, the heat caused too much moisture in the formicarium.

[Nathant2131]

Cool glad to hear

[Saftron]

Due to the issue of fungus I have decided to move them out of the Inception Chamber small into a fortress, they only fill half the water tower chamber out of 8 chambers. I have 1 video and some pics of them moving I hope you like them.

 

 

[antgenius123]

Nice colony

[Saftron]

Hey guys I'm sorta "back" (maybe?) into ant keeping and my Tetra colony has survived about 2-3 months of neglect due to a hard time in my life. They have survived through by a couple drops of sugar, water, and honey (that didn't dry up) throughout those 2 months. The colony definately isn't healthy and has lost half the worker size but I have hope they will survive more since they made it this far.

Edited by Saftron, June 13 2017 - 8:16 AM.

[Goldsystem]

Hey guys I'm sorta "back" (maybe?) into ant keeping and my Tetra colony has survived about 2-3 months of neglect due to a hard time in my life. They have survived through by a couple drops of sugar, water, and honey (that didn't dry up) throughout those 2 months. The colony definately isn't healthy and has lost half the worker size but I have hope they will survive more since they made it this far.

Sorry to hear about the bad times, I hope your situation is improving. As far as recovery goes tetramorium are very good at it, if you start feeding them regularly they will start to grow again. I wish you luck with them

[sgheaton]

I've based my own colony against Zero's, another Colorado anter, because we caught our queens in the same state, SUPER close to each other relatively speaking, around the same time. He provided them with everything they needed from the get go (Good steady supply of food, heating cable constantly on, proper formicarium) as opposed to me (Got a wild hair to attempt anting which ((I forgot about my current queen entirely)) and never fed them insects (till this year) and just would use.....stuff periodically. Every once in awhile I'd feed them. I would cycle my heating cable on/off about every....12 hours. 

 

While my colony was surviving and getting by, they weren't thriving as well as they could have been. My numbers were... 1/3 - 1/4 of his for that initial ....5 months.  Like Gold said, just start back up again and they'll come back just fine. 

[Saftron]

Update: It’s been about a year and about a month since I last posted on here. Unfortunately my first colony is no longer with me... but I’ve recently acquired two more queens with workers. I hope that these queens will be as successful as my favorite first colony. Glad that I got back into it and I’m glad I got my brother into it now too. My colony will be Colony A, this queen has 1 wing still attached and about 9 workers. My brothers colony will be colony B, this queen has removed all of its wings and has about 6 workers.

[CatsnAnts]

That’s great to hear! Good luck!

[BrianK]

Wishing you and your new queens all the best and it was nice meeting you yesterday.

[Saftron]

Update: Colony A is at about 12 workers and Colony B is at about 11 workers. Colony B seems to be more excited when they are fed and pull their food to the cotton. Colony A is more cautious I would say and just leave the food where it is and feed from there. When I was feeding colony A sugar water, the queen's wing got stuck and she was unable to move for I don't know how long but I was able to get her free and she's been doing fine. Colony B's queen is always helping her workers when it come's to moving food. 

[Saftron]

They love Scrambled Eggs!