2 replies to this topic

[fleetingyouth]

Hi All, 

 

This is my first summer anting. Several of my Terta queens are off and running with about 15 workers from their first eggs and I estimate about another 30 over the next 2 months. I've done a ton of reading and it seems I could easily hit 50 before hibernating. 

I was thinking of maybe doing the multiple test tube setups in a container for a couple but wanted to start a nest for the biggest colony. What would be a good first colony size? what's a good tunnel size? would a big formicarium they can grow into be bad? 

 

I might make my own so I'm looking for comparison sizes. 

 

 

Thanks in advance for any info.

A lot of the reading I've been doing is for larger species so its hard to figure out what's best for smaller ants. 

 

 

[Skwiggledork]

I'm new to ants as well, so I'm just going off what I've read online, but I am waiting on the delivery of and AntsRussia X-8 nest/outworld for my Tetramorium queen. She is up to about 8 workers, so won't be moving in any time soon, but the AntsRussia nest has lots of chambers you can open/close off and I read somewhere that just the first chamber being open is equivalent to twice the space of a test tube, so once they get close to outgrowing their test tube that's what I'm giving them. Too much space and they will store their trash in the nest and it will mold, so I think I will be ok with being able to slowly give them more space.  

[sirjordanncurtis]

Tetramorium immigrans can live pretty much anywhere. Giving them a decent sized outworld can easily accommodate up to 100-150 workers, even in test tube setup. By then, they should be able to move into a formicarium.

 

I like to wait until my colonies start producing full sized workers before moving into a formicarium usually.