Okay, so almost a month has gone by since I started testing out the new fungus container with the cement floor, and it's not working so great. Nothing seems to have harmed the ants at all, but there's just not enough moisture.
For the first week the ants continued to add substrate to the fungus, but then stopped and didn't do anything more to it. I noticed they never seemed to do much standing on the fungus garden itself like all the other colonies, but instead would just stand next to it all the time. Finally after about two weeks had gone by, it looked like it was starting to dry out a bit, and then yesterday it finally started to die. When I put a couple drops of water in there, the ants immediately started drinking it as if they were dying of thirst. I think it's pretty obvious the container is just way too dry.
Even though cement changes color, making it clear that it's absorbing water, it seems to be such a small amount, that it still feels dry to the touch. I think even though the humidity at first was about the same as it was using any of the other materials, the humidity right on the surface was probably much lower in comparison to the others because the cement is so dry. Also, I don't know if this is true, but it seems like as the cement continues to cure, it gets less and less permeable. Once I get the colony moved to the next container to be tested, I'll check the humidity of this cement container again and see if it has changed at all since it's original reading.
The only option this leaves me with is the ceramic tile again. Instead of pouring cement around the edges of the tiles, this time I used resin. I did try some resin once the first time, but the gaps on the edges were so thin, it was almost impossible to pour the resin in there without getting it all over the tile and the sides of the container. One major problem is when the stream of resin gets very thin, static electricity makes it fly over onto the side of the container. I tried squirting it out of a little pipette, which worked better but still wasn't good enough. This time I left a larger gap between the tile and the sides of the container, and with the help of the pipette again, I was able to squirt the resin into it without making any mess at all.
Over all, this doesn't look too bad, and I'm pretty sure it's going to function fine, since these tiles absorb water almost as well as Hydrostone. One thing I don't like is the pinkish color of these particular tiles. I have another tile I got from Amazon that was more of a pure white, but unfortunately those are a bit more expensive.
Here you can see the water absorbing into the tile. This happens within seconds with these tiles, a lot like Hydrostone.
I'll be moving the colony into this later today, if I think the resin has cured enough.
As for the water tanks, I decided I am going to start designing them all with three ports instead of one. This way the same tank can be used for the larger versions of these I plan on designing next. This would also allow you to setup two nests and have them connected together if you wanted to move a colony between them or something. I can also use the same water tanks for other things that need hydration, like my springtail cultures for instance. I'll just use some plugs to cover any ports that aren't being used.
Making these with three water ports means the screw-top mouth will have to go (since it would obviously interfere with any container I would try to set over the center port. Instead I'm just going to use a smaller hole for the mouth with a very low profile rubber plug. This hole will be in the corner too, making them much easier to empty them.
I found the perfect little plug, and ordered what I thought would be a hand-full of them, only to find out I paid $4.50 for a single tiny 8 mm plug.
I was pretty pissed, but that just gave me an even better idea. Since these plugs were black, and I would have preferred something more translucent to match the tank better, I just made a mold from the one I got, and then poured a whole bunch of them myself using translucent silicone.
I started with a resin mold of one.
Then once I had four made, I lined them up inside a small square plastic container and made a silicone mold from all of them.
These plugs are working great, and cost me hardly anything. Now I just have to create the plug for the water ports, and the tanks will be complete.
