ANTSTORE World of Ants

[JimmyVe]

Does anyone have experience with this species ?
I would like to learn more about them.

Thanks

[JimmyVe]

No one with experience ?

I would like to now what they need on food. Leafs i understand but what do you give them when it is winter here, when there are no leafs ?

Thanks

[Bud Spencer]

Blackberrys, roses and some other plants do not drop their leaves in winter. You can also feed the ants with fruits.

[JimmyVe]

okay, thank you very much Bud.

Do you keep them yourself ? any suggestions ?

[Bud Spencer]

No, I keep Lasius niger and I do not have any experience and suggestions in keeping Acromyrmex versicolor. A guy named Rolande from another forum is keeping Acromyrmex spec. but the keeping report is in german so you can not do anything with it if you do not speak german.

[JimmyVe]

i speak it a little bit. I can use a translating site. If you can give me the site.
Thank you very much. (not a lot of people is keeping them so i have little information about them)

Greets

[JimmyVe]

I know this is an older topic but i need to start it up again, i have a bit of problem with my Acromyrmex sp. (in the mean time i'm not sure it is a versicolor)

It seems like the fungus is dying it is getting smaller every day, i still give them leafs. What could be the problem ?

[sithmaster676]

not that i have any experience with this ant at all but i know quite a bit about them so ill make some suggestions.
it could be down to the humidity or temperature, or it may be that the ants are just eating more than usual feed them a bit extra and see what happens
hope that has helped
Sithmaster676

[Necturus]

You probably thought of that too, but did you change the Food source? Maybe leaves infected with pesticides or fungicids?
Greetings,
Necturus

[willi461]

From personal experience i suggest:
The fungi seeing it is a own lifeform also has a cycle and it "sweats" producing a water. If the fungi doenst have something that will suck the water away(soil little peples or something like that) the fungi will start to collapse and die. Also the fungi is pretty dark at one point and white at another. The black end is the part where the fungi dies or to say is old and pretty much non notrious.
The white end is the part that the ants build upon.
My own ants i usually give them a large amount of leaves which they take 1 day to carry off.After this i give them 3-4 day time to build out thei soil. Seeing that if they have leaves non stop they wont put to much time with the soil.
I keep mine in a 5 inch deep eart aquarium. Luckily they built a tunnel right at the bottom edges and upon watching their behaviour i noticed whenever they build with the fungi they take all larva eggs and so forth and put them in a small edge. Ince finished they take these back.By watching these different behaviours off my Acromyrmex spec. it gets much easier to see how you can make it easier for them with their fungi.

Hope you can get them happy again. I dont come onto this forum much more(most people here have to mayn sniddy answers so dont take the time to throw in you're comments on what you disagree with me seeing what i do works exelent for my colony. Hope it helps.

[JimmyVe]

Thank for your help guys. I'm did not change the food or heating or humidity. It went well all the time, until now. I'm not sure why...

Okay willy i understand, it try to make them happy again. I do my best (with al of my species) This colony is still very small 1 queen and about 5 workers, but i need to do something quick before the fungus dies.

[martjduk]

hi, i used to have an acromyrmex colony but know have atta cephalotes colony.
Anyway your colony is very very small. It needs to be in an enclosed container with only small hole in and out for them to get the leaves into. Hole preferably near the bottom of the container so the air can rise in the container and be trapped, keeping the inside of the conatiner humid.
You need to provide food(leaves for fungus and fruit (sugars for ants and for fungus) very close by at this early stage of the colonies life.
Give them apple, pear, grape, orange skin (the white piff), privet leaf, rose leaf, lilac leaf, oak, silver birch leaf etc. vary foods every day.

with the apple and pear and grape you can also peel the skin off and give the colony this.

Provide them with some wet tissue so they can drink the water absorbed in it and can take the wet tissue back to the nest to provide humidity and use it to close holes into nest etc (to allow them to regulate their own humidity).

always try to keep nest at 24-26 oc. if temp varies too much you get problems with condensation and ants dont like temerature variation eaither.

if you need more help email me - mjdack@aol.com

good luck (such a small colony will be hard to succeed with), Martin.

[JimmyVe]

Thank you Martin.
I know it is a difficult task but i'm doing my best and i hope i will succeed. it is in deed a very small colony.

[darradar]

I offer you my sincere good luck wishes Jimmy, I hope that you can keep this colony happy, and succeed with it in the future.

[Werty]

If i remember right, the Acromyrmex versicolor lives in North American deserts. So they need more desert like climate(hot and dry)nest than their tropical cousins.

It's very important to know, what kind of climate your Acromyrmex spec. needs, because wrong type of climate usual leeds to failure of keeping the species.