ANTSTORE World of Ants

[G4m813R]

Hey adam james please update your report. I am new with harpegnathos venator too and I'm very interested in problems etc. of other owners.

greets

[adam james]

Hello g4m813r , the reason theres been no update is because nothings happened . The queen lays eggs and then the colony eats them , and they are well fed with crickets etc . So for now nothing to report sorry .

[Purifier]

G4m813R have some problems with mites. Maybe you can help him or can say if u have the same problem

[adam james]

Hello purifier , i havent a problem with mites but i would suggest he seperate the affected workers straight away. from wot ive read on hear and wot ive read in books , ants dont live that long with mites on them . sorry i carnt be more help at the moment , im still learning too

[JimmyVe]

Mites on the ants ore just mites in the farm ?

[G4m813R]

on two of 16 ants
its better since yesterday
and one guy with harpegnathos venator wrote that his have mites a longer time and no one died because of that

[Purifier]

Its better right now? Fine to hear
What did you changed? You disconnect the farm from the basin or? And you let come down the humidity...or

[G4m813R]

I put the ants in the farm. the two infected i cleaned a bit with a teeth brush. on the sand in the farm they can rub the mites off. there are some mites left on them, but less than two days ago.
the basin is disconnected at the moment. later today I will clean anything up and put it in the furnace.

In future I will only control humidity and temperature only in the farm. The rest I will keep down.

[port513]

This is one species I want.

What is the best way to keep them?
One big basin or one brood basin and one hunting basin?
Is it possible to breed them, to make a new colony?

*** EDIT ***
Can this species climb glass?
*** END EDIT ***

/Henke

[akell]

I've got eggs. 6 of them. Whan I saw your post about eggs being eaten, I decided to "force feed" the Harpegnathos venators. I push a cricket or a grub I found under deadwood bark right into the nest. So far the eggs are still there. This is good news because I have not see one egg since November. I was checking two or three times a week with a cheap endoscope. Maybe they were being eaten and I did not notice. They had dug a fair sized cave fer themselves but I got a big test tube, put a bit water in it and bunged it with cotton, just as antstore does, Then I drilled two holes in the tube and buried it in the clay with the opening sticking out a bit. They all moved into that little set up in a day and a week after that the queen began laying. I keep 17 in a 60x20x30 farm basin. I started with 20. So just the one basin for me. Mine do not climb the glass, but they do climb anywhere they can get a foothold so I make sure to keep the glass clean with a scraper.
Thay seem to be pretty easy to keep. they don't seem to mind if the basin is wet or dry, as long as there is a watering place available. mine ignore dead food, it has to be live. Even those fat pine grubs that don't move will get them to attack, maybe they can smell if something is dead or maybe feel a circulation vibration in the prey, I don't know. Maybe Jimmy knows. Are you there Jimmy?

[JimmyVe]

I'm always here.

I'm not sure, but i think they can feel it.
Some nice info about these ants you can find in Wikipedia.

[DigiSERBIA]

Nice setup ! Cant wait to see the pictures of them in the setup

[Andie]

Its getting warmer m8, not to long now

[baumarkthammer]

How long is the way from the nest to the foraging basin?
And how exactly are they supposed to make a nest?

Harpegnathos spp. have pretty characteristic nests with very few or only one chamber and their nests are very flat.
When the nest is to high the ants don´t really feel at home you could say.
I have observed that they even build a small chamber inside of Ytongnests which are like 2-3cm high so that the chamber is smaller.

[adam james]

Hello Guys thanks for the comments , Andie yeap not long now fellor , hopfully they should be sentto me this week

Hello Baumarkthammer

It is only about a metre from the nest setup along the acrylic tube to the foraging tank. There are only 3 small containers as i read about harpegnathos spp having few nest chambers. The nest setup containers have about a inch of plaster in the bottom and the nests are flat inside here. Harpegnathos have no trouble climbing verticly up glass from my experiance so the slight incline in the acrylic pipe shouldent cause them great diffuculty, it has a layer of plaster in anyway to help with grip.

I have read alot about them , but i no of course you keep Harpegnathos saltator so have experiance with them , but most people keep them in a basic plaster nest with containers and just a layer of plaster in the bottom and the ants have trhived under these conditions. I have read many extracts from documents online by Cristian Peeters and Bert Holldobler who studyed both species and they kept there colonys under lab conditions in containers with just a simple plaster layer in the bottom for easy observation.

Im hoping this will suffice for my colony when they arrive also.

please feel free thou to offer any thoughts or advice if you have concerns over my setup.

Regards

Adam