157 replies to this topic

[anttics]

Maybe cover it with an even layer sand.

I know for a fact they will bring it up to the surface. It will also fall into the cracks, and limit the watet reservoir capacity. It though of small rocks. But these species are strong enough to carry them out. Moss seems the best option. I was thing of some fine mesh as well, but not sure what to use. I realise there are not many issues to fix aside from the bricks.

[anttics]

The terrarium was a success. Exempt for small leaks in both chambers. Which is great it wets the clay just a bit. Pic


The humidity is around 60 in top floor. The middle floor must be on the 70s. that's also where they keep some of their develop brood. The lower floor is the hydration floor. There are a few issues. I encounter. Which was my bad. I will fix it. Here are some pics






This is the tube I use to pour water into the bricks.




This is the problem. Could be a lethal problem. Since the queen is haging around where all the water reserves should be at. Along with all the eggs. You can see if you soom under the tile. I moved the heat cable up. The queen has come up to the tiles thank god. same with all eggs. Still I'm paranoid to drown the queen. So i put very little water. I will have to pull up all floors, and put fire bricks and sand under the tiles. Which will make seen the water level almost impossible. Ill have to figure out sone way to see the water level. So i do not drown the bottom floor by mistake. Good thing about my design. I can easely take one whole half out, and fix it. Then change the heat cable to the fixed side. Once they moved over. In the cold night. I can fix the other side.

If anyone wants me to make an antropolis or hibrid terrarium like this. Hit me up. We can work over the price.
I can tell you it takes a week to make one. And strangely love doing them. it will cost more than most tar heels product. My cheapest most simple one. where I keep my veromessor will run you from 150 to 200$ depending on 10 to 15 gal. tank price. You can keep fullgrown colonies in them. With easy design to clean up. You can add floors as they grow.

Edited by anttics, March 22 2019 - 10:50 PM.

[anttics]

I was able.to fix the side which they are not using. Still hundreds rushed to attack my hand. The tiles have firebrick under them. To save any dummy who tries to learn how to swim. To my delight. I have notice workers taking dirt inside the nest. I checked to discover they have been waterproffing under the tiles. Here are some pics.







Now i won't have to fix that side. I'm adding water every 2 to 3 days. The fix side i filled up. As their water reserves. In case i forget to add water to the side under construction.

Also glad to say. I found spring tales triving. I saw many tiny ones. Which means they are breeding. No mold issues thx to the spring tales. The terrarium is working nice.

Here are a few pics of them doing their thing. This is my favorite photo.


Look at their skinny long legs holding to dear life. I have been using this method for 1 week. Not one single ant has drown. They last about a week. Some to evaporation, most to them drinking.

Here they are taking a frozen criket.

[Rstheant]

How many workers? Also I MIGHT buy a Anttropolis if it looks a bit more professional, for my fast growing adrei. If it’s smaller I’ll take that. I do not want a HUGE formicarium.

[anttics]

Mmm. the colony had 500. when I moved them in. about 2 weeks ago. With 100 pupa, days from waking up. Maybe 650 now. almost all pupa now are white, and larva.

You like the anttropolis. Its a good choice. I like the hybrids like this one. The ones I have done for me are very spartan. I'm still perfecting them.

[anttics]

Here is a short video of the srpingtales. Living with the novos. They ignored them now. But I have seen a novo bite and take one away. So they are in the menu.

https://i.imgur.com/xLY59iR.gifv

They finish all that egg. In 2 days

[anttics]

I'm having a civil war. Many dead. Many more still dying. Some vids. I want to leave them alnone, and not stress them

https://i.imgur.com/vlOvf09.gifv

https://i.imgur.com/gvgnELk.gifv

[Rstheant]

Woah, hope they recover. The queen is okay though, right?

[anttics]

Yeah queen is chilling at the first floor tiles. These killing is happening on the second floor. Next to the heat cable. Their antenna can pass through the small gap to the first floor. Where another ant will bite her antenna. Then every other ant in the second floor goes nuts, and attacks the ant with the antenna bitten by the worker on the first floor. I'm not sure if they think they are being attack, marking the dummy ant with the amtenna as an enemy. who gets killed. Its being happening for 2 days now. Every hour or so they take the ants with out gasters or legs in the out world to die. So far count has reach 15. With many more still being killed. If anyone with a large cockerelli has seen this let me know.

Pics and vids from 10 minutes ago





This video makes no sense. You can see.an ant attakong the FLOOR wth. While the ant pin down has a worker trying to cut her gaster. Look closely. What worries me more. Is there is an ant in the first floor who is tryong to bite another worker whose antenna passed the gap. As if first floor was at war with second then.

https://i.imgur.com/4IkB6tt.gifv

Then i saw the second video. You can see a worker in the glass.missing 1 keg, and part of the other. Also some ants being pulled by the antenna all in the first floor.

https://i.imgur.com/TLxC48k.gifv

Something strange i notice. This ants will come out around noon bynthe 100s to get some.nectar. always the same time give or take 10 to 20 minutes. Since this killings have started not a single ant has fed from the nectar. Which i replace 2 days ago. Still fresh. Weird. They change their behavior from one day to the other.

Edited by anttics, April 6 2019 - 3:39 PM.

[Guy_Fieri]

I know this probably isn't the best time to do this to them but if the killing doesn't stop maybe you should move them to another formicarium. Maybe one worker mistook another on the other side of the wall for an intruder and put down some pheromones that caused the other ants to start attacking too.

[Leo]

I had this once but with pheidole

[sirjordanncurtis]

Maybe there's not enough circulation of air, which causes a build-up of the ants' pheromones, making them confused and unable to identify different scents. This confusion might incite some sort of aggression if they can't determine who's who.

[anttics]

Maybe there's not enough circulation of air, which causes a build-up of the ants' pheromones, making them confused and unable to identify different scents. This confusion might incite some sort of aggression if they can't determine who's who.

This species are funny. Some workers do rebel, and lay their own eggs. They ussually strech them from their legs for 1.or.2 days. Untill they calm down. I have seen it. This was different it was an all out battle. Total of 60 workers killed. Many have lost limbs. I'm still not sure what happened. The only change to their routine was a change of food. I had been feeding them chicken, and bloodworm for a 2 months. Then i gave them crickets which they seem too exited. Their limbs where cut before they even reached their entrance. I feed them 12 large crickets in 3 days. They where eating 4 crickets in hours. I did not expect they ate so much. Then I did not gave them any protein for 2 days. The civil war started the second day without protein. Ventilation in the nest should be enough. There are about 2 large entarnces and 3 small entrances where a large cricket might not fit. Plus there are micro gaps at all edges of each floor. Enough for argentine ants to squeez. So yeah ventilation checked. My hypothesis is. They had so much food. Many workers felt like laying their eggs after so much protein. I over feed them. Yet this species lays unfertilized eggs to feed larva, and the queen. This explains, why they have not taken nectar in almost 2 or 3 days. Which was a everyday spectacle to see 3 to 5 ants in the out world. Then in 1 minute hundreds form a trail to the nectar buckets. It was dope. They are all loving sisters now. I guess we will never know why they where so brutal with 60 sisters. Please people with large novos. Do not tell me this has only happened to me. Not very promising if so.

Edited by anttics, April 7 2019 - 10:34 PM.

[sirjordanncurtis]

Actually, we probably do know. In fact, what you are experiencing may not be a novomessor only problem. 

 

I think the sudden change of food was in fact the reason your workers started to fight each other. There was a study done on Argentine ants which tested how agressive they would be towards each other based on what food they ate. The result was that when fairly unassertive colonies were given different types of food, they became more agitated and aggressive towards each other. When colonies which displayed medium amounts of aggression towards each other were fed the same type of food, they became more pliant and mild. This change happens because the hydrocarbons in the pheromones produced by the epigenetic expression of ants is partially based on what they eat. Based on the way your nest is structured, it is possible that the pheromones on a specific level would only settle at that level, and so when ants at the surface start eating different types of food, if they enter the nest, workers who had only previously eaten the chicken may suddenly be extremely alarmed and consider the surface workers to be intruders from a foreign colony. This effect may be magnified by the possibilty that ventilation of pheromones could be somewhat difficult. I would suggest that when you switch foods, do it gradually instead of just suddenly switching it. Maybe put a bit of cricket with the chicken and slowly integrate towards only cricket. Another way is to always be rotating what you feed them. You could do one week cricket, one week chicken, and one week fruit flies. By doing this cycle, if you suddenly decide to change to cricket one day, the ants would be less alarmed. As your colony is pretty large, sudden changes to diet may be lethal. This is less likely to happen in the wild, because workers always have a wide variety of foods to choose from, and so their pheromones are more mixed up.

[anttics]

Good advise. Ill try to mix it more. Where did you learn this?. I did not know. They were so susceptible to changes. Ill try to easy up on the new food. I will increase the amount little by little. Body count has gone up to 66.

Funny thing I notice. Not a single young ant was killed. They where old dark workers. I should mention. I have had no dead workers in the last 6, or maybe more months. Could it be that they euthanized those old workers. I do not know. It could be any reason. Here are a few pics.






They are keeping the larva where the water should go. Dummies.
I now put. Water on the other side of tha nest. It has a good reserve enough for a month. I'm sure humidity is ideal on the first floor. Not sure why they rather go deeper down. I might have to do a reading soon, and maybe fix the water reservoir like i did the other side. Its just a b...h. worker got up to my head last time. Next project ill fix all the bug before i put the colony in. They bite in groups too. It trobling, but not painful

Edited by anttics, April 9 2019 - 10:43 PM.

[Rstheant]

Maybe there's not enough circulation of air, which causes a build-up of the ants' pheromones, making them confused and unable to identify different scents. This confusion might incite some sort of aggression if they can't determine who's who.

This species are funny. Some workers do rebel, and lay their own eggs. They ussually strech them from their legs for 1.or.2 days. Untill they calm down. I have seen it. This was different it was an all out battle. Total of 60 workers killed. Many have lost limbs. I'm still not sure what happened. The only change to their routine was a change of food. I had been feeding them chicken, and bloodworm for a 2 months. Then i gave them crickets which they seem too exited. Their limbs where cut before they even reached their entrance. I feed them 12 large crickets in 3 days. They where eating 4 crickets in hours. I did not expect they ate so much. Then I did not gave them any protein for 2 days. The civil war started the second day without protein. Ventilation in the nest should be enough. There are about 2 large entarnces and 3 small entrances where a large cricket might not fit. Plus there are micro gaps at all edges of each floor. Enough for argentine ants to squeez. So yeah ventilation checked. My hypothesis is. They had so much food. Many workers felt like laying their eggs after so much protein. I over feed them. Yet this species lays unfertilized eggs to feed larva, and the queen. This explains, why they have not taken nectar in almost 2 or 3 days. Which was a everyday spectacle to see 3 to 5 ants in the out world. Then in 1 minute hundreds form a trail to the nectar buckets. It was dope. They are all loving sisters now. I guess we will never know why they where so brutal with 60 sisters. Please people with large novos. Do not tell me this has only happened to me. Not very promising if so.

I once feed my Novomessor cockerelli colony of 200+ six crickets to eat within 4 days. They didn’t have a problem, except there were more trophic eggs.

[sirjordanncurtis]

 

 

Maybe there's not enough circulation of air, which causes a build-up of the ants' pheromones, making them confused and unable to identify different scents. This confusion might incite some sort of aggression if they can't determine who's who.

This species are funny. Some workers do rebel, and lay their own eggs. They ussually strech them from their legs for 1.or.2 days. Untill they calm down. I have seen it. This was different it was an all out battle. Total of 60 workers killed. Many have lost limbs. I'm still not sure what happened. The only change to their routine was a change of food. I had been feeding them chicken, and bloodworm for a 2 months. Then i gave them crickets which they seem too exited. Their limbs where cut before they even reached their entrance. I feed them 12 large crickets in 3 days. They where eating 4 crickets in hours. I did not expect they ate so much. Then I did not gave them any protein for 2 days. The civil war started the second day without protein. Ventilation in the nest should be enough. There are about 2 large entarnces and 3 small entrances where a large cricket might not fit. Plus there are micro gaps at all edges of each floor. Enough for argentine ants to squeez. So yeah ventilation checked. My hypothesis is. They had so much food. Many workers felt like laying their eggs after so much protein. I over feed them. Yet this species lays unfertilized eggs to feed larva, and the queen. This explains, why they have not taken nectar in almost 2 or 3 days. Which was a everyday spectacle to see 3 to 5 ants in the out world. Then in 1 minute hundreds form a trail to the nectar buckets. It was dope. They are all loving sisters now. I guess we will never know why they where so brutal with 60 sisters. Please people with large novos. Do not tell me this has only happened to me. Not very promising if so.

I once feed my Novomessor cockerelli colony of 200+ six crickets to eat within 4 days. They didn’t have a problem, except there were more trophic eggs.

 

Like I said, it might also have to do with the way the nest is structured. It's also not really about how much you feed them, just sudden changes of food after they have developed a routine

[anttics]

They started to fight again. At least 20 ants are being cut to pieces. They are killing them selfs as fast as they are growing. 100 dead in 2 weeks 200 pupa will be born in 2 weeks. So I threw the towel. They will either trive in that nest. or they will die there. Not planning to do another nest. Either way here is a pic.


If its becuase of poor ventilation. Too bad for them. Veromessor pergandei are housed in a nest with much less ventilation. Yet they never massacre each other. Maybe its their nature to kill eachother either way. I do not care what happens to this colony anymore. I will let nature do its thing.

I decide to record how they kill eachother to do a video. I notice the ants under attack. Have a white powder covering them. Mayne they can not smell then. Check it outm tell.me what you all think. It can not be poor ventilation. After the holes i made. I notice water evaporates quicker than before i did the holes.

https://i.imgur.com/L05JohZ.gifv

https://i.imgur.com/EsLVSzv.gifv

https://i.imgur.com/GM35vQ4.gifv

Edited by anttics, April 14 2019 - 6:44 PM.

[KBant]

Probably not ventilation. In my THA nest I only have 1 ventilation hole, which is their entrance. All other holes are plugged.

[sirjordanncurtis]

Just try to feed them the same food consistently ig. If they're already fighting, I'm not sure what you could do.