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Well howdy guys , I have finished the first part of my Leaf cutting ants set up. Finally my Atta cephalotes have a feeding platform and foraging walk way to be proud off.
My design a acrylic pipe within a pipe to allow a water moat around a central cylinder for the nest entrance, the central cylinder on the feeding platform would allow water in through holes in the base and the central pipe was capped of with a acrylic disc drilled with holes to allow plant stems to be placed in. :P
So my parts arrived and I set about cutting then gluing the two acrylic pipes. They needed to be water tight so I used a special acrylic glue that welded the acrylic disks in place and I used to heavy bird books to weigh them down while the glue set. It needed 24 hours to become strong.
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The next step I was extremely anxious about , all my setup hopes were built around this one task and the out come , were the acrylic pipes watertight.
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They were, now time to create the inner sections and add the access hole.
I drilled a hole in the side of the Pipe that was functioning as the nest entrance, I also drilled a hole into the inner section , both holes lined up perfectly which was a must for the next step
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I then inserted a smaller acrylic pipe through both access holes and welded glues this in place , I also used the glue to seal the inner pipe in place , thus constructing a gap all around , hopefully to add water later. A hole was added to the front and this was bunged up with a cork for draining the water should it become stagnant and need cleaning. :D
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I then added the rope, with it secure inside the inner pipe and draping up the inside i could work on fastening it around the rim of the inner pipe with wire, :)
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Once complete , the whole thing was put in place and attached to the colony, I held my breath yet again as I filled the gap with water and looked out for leaks.
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Thankfully a great success, no leaks took place and all looked great on the inside 8)
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The rope walk way was attached , hung from the ceiling by thin but strong fishing line is almost looked like it was hovering in the air.
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Finally it went across the room before descending down to the feeding platform
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With a nice selection of hawthorn blossom and privet leaves and the fact the foliage is kept nice and fresh from the water below , should give my colony the A+ of leaf cutting ant care. =P~
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And finally here's where this setup leads , Through the wall and into my colony's heat box , where many fungus gardens and thousands of ants await.
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That's my update for now guys , hopefully I can get the new designed containers ready by this weekend and the ants transferred to them along with the gardens , then I shall complete the second half of my update and start getting a few videos up :wink:
Adam :mrgreen:
Well guys I have finished the second stage of my leaf cutting ant set up. I set to work gluing the bases to my acrylic pipes , making sure they were weighted down to increase the tightness of the bond.
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Once all set 24 hours later I had some rather nice looking containers to house the fungus gardens. :D
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I drilled the holes , added the acrylic collars for joining the tubes and added a black magnetic strip. This was used purely for decorative purpose and to act as a support for the glass lids :grin:
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transferring the ants was the tricky part. In the end I decided to do this out doors, the cool weather caused the ants to be sluggish while I moved the gardens and this allowed me to find the queen and move all the gardens easily. Once done the whole thing looked pretty sweet :P
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The queen can just be seen in the picture below , she is the dark mass on top with the workers swarmed around her. She will be kept in this container , the tube coming from this has three metal bars in it , allowing workers and leaves to pass through but not her 8)
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It wasn't long before the ants had settled , quickly they started to reassemble the damaged gardens and order was established again.
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Well that's my update and my new setup for my Atta Cephalotes, will update with videos soon. :)
take care guys
Adam :mrgreen:
How r they doin u haven't posted in months
Wow Adam you really got this going well now. :) I'm gonna have to have another go at this at some point.
Thank you Andie , they unfortunately died out mate , queen died. :(
Ah sorry m8, you did so well with these. I'm getting a couple of queens to start again, only some Messor and Camponotus . Ive been quite ill but now i'm fixed want to start my ants off again :)
Sorry to hear you weren't well mate , good to hear your fixed. Look forward to seeing you new blogs if you do some :D
That's awful! How long have you had this queen?
Had the colony a few years , It was the extremely hot weather in summer which caused the colony to fail. :(
Did the heat damage the fungus, or do you think it directly affected the queen?