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I just recently recived a colony of what looks like Pheidole pallidula from my freind who did not want them anymore. he had not done a good job with there setup so i made them a new one. I molded a plaster set up for them out of dapp plaster of paris. to create the tunnels i used home made play dough and to make sure i could get it out of the mold i lubricated the mold with vegtable oil(is veggie oil going to hurt the ants). this layout has a water basin on one end and a tube which connects to a forageing area made from a petri dish with a hole cut in it. the colony had about 100 ants and 50 eggs. I have offered them some insects but they have not eaten them. I think there were little bits of play dough left in the cage that i did not remove. I beleive they are eating it and i am worried it may hurt them. my main question is how wet should the plaster be to accomidate the ants (should it be slightly moist to the touch on the outside or dry on the outside) also, i have a fro that eats crickets. can i remove a leg from the crickets and feed it to the ants or do they need something else also, one of the ants was dead when i got them. before i could remove the body, one of the ants moved it into the nesting area out of my reach. why was the body moved in the nest and do i need to figure out how to get it. My final question is if the ants want to eat something will they drag it into their nests or leave the nest and eat it without moving it
Hi there mikey and welcome. Firstly a pic of your setup would be very helpfull. As for the vegtable oil the only problem i see there is the ants might get stuck on it but im not sure. DOnt worry about the dead ant they will remove it when they want it gone. The nest should be fairly wet but also make sure some is dry.. as for the playdoh i doubt they are eating it.. these ants can chew through almost anything so they are probabily chewing it away and putting the bits somewhere. As for crickets, i feed my pallidula whole crickets cut in half and they eat them no problem. If your friend didnt look after them that well then i doubt u will see much activity for some time. But dont worry they will eat 100 ants still sounds like a small colony for pallidula so they may only eat at night and you wouldnt really notice. make sure you give them some fruit ike apple and some honey/sugar water aswell.
Hope ive helped :D
Here are the pictures. another concern i have is the discovery of 8 dead ants i have had them for 3 days is this a bad sign. As Small note, i removed the soil from the forageing area. It smelled funny and i think some of the ants were making a new nest in it. can anyone reccomend a different type of soil for that area? i have coconut husk bedding for my frog could i put that in there. Also, i usualy have a peice of cardboard over the nesting area. is that ok or do i need something else? do i need to cover the forageing area with anything? last question do i need an external heat scorce. the thermometer in my room says 22.6 C is that an acceptable temperature?
Thanks for reading,
Mikey
sorry i forgot to ask if these are really P heidole pallidula ther is infor on where i live and pictures that may help someone identify these in the previous post
As for as i can see they look like Pheidole species, not sure if it are pallidulla .
my plaster set up i had them in molded so i put them in a regular ant farm. another problem with the the plaster set up is the that the ants were digging thro that theugh it. Heres my question. I have my ants in one of the Gel Habitat containers (I that emptied out the gel and put sand in it). they have been creating tunels but i have some concerns. First, when i not theiced the an digging to the the thethrough the plaster and the mold on the plas theter i panicked and made them a new habitat very quickly. i used some sand from my old uncle milton ant farms that i had used a few times. I did not bake the sand becuause that there were no ant bodies or mold particles in it. Now the farm has an a slight odor sort of like a hamster cage. My next problem is with the ventilation of the farm because I used an antworks gel habitat, I did not get many air holes. The ones I did get though, I had to cover up because the ants could crawl out and escape. I have been misting the soil every other day to make sure the nest is not dry out. But, because I have no open air holes, any extra moisture cannot escape out of the ant farm. I need some suggestions on how to make air holes small enough so that these tiny ants cannot escape. My last concern is with expanding the farm in the future. Because I was so hasty in making a new set up for my ants, I did not provide any way to expand the colony. Is there any way to drill holes to allow expansion without disturbing the ants.
Thanks for reading,
Mikey
Well mikey if i was you i would seriously consider either making a ytong or getting yourself a few tanks because pheidole will expand out of a tiny gel thing in no time. Not to mention the problems you have already highlighted, your also gonna have problems feeding them and giving them water. Im afraid if they are not moved into a decent setup very soon u will loose them.