59 replies to this topic

[Mathiacus]

There has been an eggsplosion overnight. There is a healthy looking pile of eggs in there now. Good timing, the last of the larvae pupated today. There are sausages everywhere.
Yellow butt is digging again and pink butt lost a leg in a scuffle.

[Mathiacus]

Either I managed to mess up counting to 6 or she regrew her leg.. but pink bum had 6 legs but only one and a half antennae. Yellow bum seems to spend a lot of time just chilling by the food dish. I am thinking of painting a few more. There seems to be absolutely no ill effects form a lick of nail polish. I may even make a rig to hold them down and really go to town on them with a single hair brush.

[Crystals]

Soon you will have rainbow ants!

The above used acrylic paint to mark all individuals in a small colony....

[Mathiacus]

that is too awesome! thanks for sharing crystal.

[dspdrew]

Yeah, it seems to be quite common in science labs to put dots of colored paint on ants, so if it's the right kind of paint, I'm sure it doesn't hurt anything. I have noticed when there's something unique about one ant in a large colony, allowing me to recognize that ant, it sometimes seems to have its own personality. Since it's so subtle, I would probably never notice it without some sort of marker.

[Mathiacus]

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6TOaEvY_hXE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

just having fun hydrating the dirt hill.

ugh! I tried an embed

http://youtu.be/6TOaEvY_hXE this?

[Mathiacus]

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6TOaEvY_hXE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

this? done with the code function

[Mathiacus]

I give up

[Crystals]

When you go to the video on youtube, copy the main URL at the top of the page.

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOaEvY_hXE&feature=youtu.be" - Just without the quotation marks. 

[Mathiacus]

like this?

 

ah! thanks crystal, I have never had luck with that before. how do I embed? oh, enjoy the tunes, it is what was open
 
you can see yellow butt here, she is still in her guard role.

Edited by dspdrew, January 2 2015 - 7:50 PM.

[Crystals]

I have no idea why you are having problems embedding.  When I copy that link and put it in its own line it automatically embeds it and I see the video instead of the link.

[dean_k]

Yes, all you need to do is copy the youtube URL and paste it here.

 

If that is not working, then I suppose you have some very strict anti-virus rules.

[dspdrew]

What's happened is Mathiacus was not pasting the video URL into the post, and instead using the embedding code which is not going to work, resulting in the automatic adding of URL bbcode. I fixed the last post.

[Gregory2455]

So they use acrylic paint... Cool.

[Mathiacus]

I have pulled the ants out of this enclosure. The queen stopped laying and none of the eggs she did lay ever hatched. They are now in a dirt setup. I am hoping the colony can grow in a better environment.

The tank will be remade minus the dirt. Ill shoot for an all artificial one this time. Maybe some potted plants. Maybe not. The tank was located in the dining room and was "on display" with the state of it after the ants tore it apart it needed to go. Ill make another thread for the new enclosure. The blocks will be reused.

[dspdrew]

You didn't like how it looked after the ants customized it?

[Mathiacus]

Lol. Not at all! It was hideous. All we ended up with was a glass tank with a meshed off mound, some scattered debris, a few nasty cockroaches and some bored looking ants. No colour, no grass and nothing much going on.

[Mathiacus]

these gals are still going great in the dirt tank. I have done a little work on the 4 foot tank but I really have a long way to go.

[rarankhan]

Nice. (I'm not jealous or anything.)  I didn't read all the comments, so I don't know if you said this already but how are you going to hydrate it. 

Edited by rarankhan, March 29 2015 - 6:46 PM.

[Crystals]

Nice. (I'm not jealous or anything.)  I didn't read all the comments, so I don't know if you said this already but how are you going to hydrate it. 

If you look 8 posts up, there is actually a video.  He used mesh over an open watering hole to prevent them from drowning.