80 replies to this topic

[Rstheant]

BTW, nice outworld. Is that store made or you made it? If you made it, GOOD JOB. It looks awesome.

 
 
actually it's something I bought from an online store when I visited China, since it was cheap

Huh, I thought you made it because it has the pink marker lines.

[sirjordanncurtis]

 

Huh, I thought you made it because it has the pink marker lines.

 

 

Lol I just copied the design onto another container so I could replicate it. But this one, I bought

[Rstheant]

Did the other container turn out successful?

[sirjordanncurtis]

Did the other container turn out successful?

 

Yeah. I used it as a template for plastic cutting and stuff.

[Rstheant]

Cool, sorry about bumping, I was curious. I might try this myself, because it looks so sleek and cool. Is the acrylic circle on the top of the lid or the bottom?

[Rstheant]

8/31
Sorry, I was wrong about pictures  
I figured the test tube was way too blurry for any good pictures, so I waited until the large larva had pupated before letting them move themselves into a new test tube. It actually wasn't that hard. Turns out, having extremely paranoid ants makes them very quick to move their nest. Took like 3 seconds

However, it is actually extremely difficult to take pictures of them. These two were the best I could get without all the workers moving around and stressing out because of light.

 
This is the nest I plan on moving them in to once they hit 20-40 workers.

Top view (lid closed):

Yeah, it looks like a mass of tape. It was the best adhesive I could use tbh. Might get a hot glue stick if tape turns out to be a problem.
Inside layout:

The three trays are meant to be when I either feed them dead bugs or drops of liquid directly. I also plan on having them use 1 of them as a trash can... don't know how that's going to work out, but I hope it does so I can clean them up easily.
The test tube with water is meant to represent where the test tube of ants would go, and the second test tube acts either as an expansion for them later on or a dry tube where I will heat later on. The two byFormica micro feeders contain water, which the ants can drink from if they do decide to stay/put their brood inside the dry tube. The plastic underneath is supposed to discourage them from piling sand onto the feeder, or just having the feeder have any sand stuck in it.
Complete inside view:

I plan on putting the cover on them like Serafine did, but I'm also a little worried that the cover might cause them to like light even less, making taking pictures even harder.

This was the other lid right? Sorry for bumping, lol.

[sirjordanncurtis]

Oh, that wasn't the other lid lol. That was a test I made early on to see if it would be possible to put the top on another container. I'm not sure what you mean by top or bottom of the container, but it's made of two circular rings, one bigger than the other, and the mesh is secured inbetween the lids. The bottom ring is around 0.5mm smaller in diameter to the hole in the container, so it fits inside.

[Rstheant]

Ok, I don’t know exactly, sorry about that. My fraggles like cricket+fruit flies more than mealworms.

[sirjordanncurtis]

I really need to start updating this more.

Their growth slowed down by a ton shortly after I last posted, but since February, they've been picking up again.

Before 2019, the colony never had a ton of brood at the same time, which I attributed the brood developing pretty fast. Now, they're brood pile is huge, around probably close to 100 pupae (I've stopped counting workers).

This was a picture of them when they had around 70 pupae, maybe a week ago.

 

To make up for all the absent time updates, here's an update in discord messages I sent a while back to "record" their growth in the discord server.

Edited by sirjordanncurtis, June 2 2019 - 2:48 PM.

[sirjordanncurtis]

Just did a count, I think they're around 150 workers, 15 of which are majors

[sirjordanncurtis]

This is their current nest/outworld setup. It's quite messy, with everything being combined into one structure, but it also does allow me to get a decent visual of them feeding

You can see from this picture its just 3 test tubes in a tall boxbox container from thecontainerstore. At first, I meant for the tube on the left to be a dry tube, but they started piling their trash inside. The tube in the middle is now the dry tube, after it ran out of water. Most of the workers and the brood nest inside of it. The last test tube is a water tube, which I take out to refill once it starts to run out. (Now, if I reach my hand inside to take the tube, they'll probably freak out and climb all over me)

Closeup of brood and majors 

These new majors are soooo beautiful. They have heads which are larger than the queen, and their gasters are always bloated and huge. Once the majors darken, their legs and antennae and some parts of the head actually become black, which contrasts really nicely with their color.

I keep a cardboard box over their nest to keep the light out. I've noticed that less exposure to light seems to be better for their brood, although I might be wrong. This is what happens when the light comes on though...  

My barrier for them isn't fluon, but it works pretty well. On the rare occasions one does manage to climb out, it's actually pretty easy to coax them back in.

Some more major pics cuz I can't resist 

These two are actually my first majors in the colony. Their heads are much smaller than the newer majors, and a little smaller than the queen's head. You can see that the lighter colored one looks more like a median than a major, as it retains the golden quality of the minor workers without having much black color either.

[anttics]

These species majors are sometimes bigger than the queen. So you do not have full soze majors yet. They are rare too. I only seen 3 major bigger than the queen. 1 is 1 year old. Still live and well. I'm not 100% sure, but major live 1 to 2 years. Minirs 1 year max. Queen lives much longer decades

Edited by anttics, June 8 2019 - 3:03 PM.

[sirjordanncurtis]

Worker pics

 

Different colony:

[sirjordanncurtis]

Here's a video of the roach eating. I was disturbed since they were drinking while it was still alive:

[sirjordanncurtis]

Some more colony media!

 

 

These are pictures from another colony. This colony has 1 median/major already!

Edited by sirjordanncurtis, May 27 2020 - 4:27 PM.

[sirjordanncurtis]

I was too lazy to get more pictures from my large colony, since I kept having to move the light around. Here's a video of the small colony from above and their new callow worker! 

(rip wrong video)

Edited by sirjordanncurtis, June 15 2020 - 11:02 AM.

[sirjordanncurtis]

Smaller colony and brood pile: I think they'll reach 20 workers in the next two weeks!

Major pic

Queen inside the large colony with a TON of brood. They had a huge die-off and only started laying again this May. Now they have over 120 pupae!

Some callow workers from the newest generation this year!

[sirjordanncurtis]

I counted today and the ants have 182 pupae. They're going to triple their size in about two weeks Here's a video of all of the pupae and the workers. I hope you guys enjoy! Just a 6 weeks ago they had absolutely no brood so I'm really stoked.

 

 

https://i.imgur.com/Vg1jU3S.mp4

Edited by sirjordanncurtis, June 19 2020 - 8:56 PM.

[TechAnt]

I counted today and the ants have 182 pupae. They're going to triple their size in about two weeks Here's a video of all of the pupae and the workers. I hope you guys enjoy! Just a 6 weeks ago they had absolutely no brood so I'm really stoked.

Yay! Die-off comeback!

[TechAnt]

[edit, misread what you posted.]

Edited by TechAnt, June 19 2020 - 8:24 PM.