ANTSTORE World of Ants

[adam james]

Great , yes they are very quick that supplier , the Tiles usally come extremly quick aswell

I look forward to your setup mate , Will you be taking pictures of progress building it and setting it up ?

[adam james]

Hi Guys , well just a quick short update.

The Ants are doing well the queen also seems very healthy. The fungus garden is building up very fast now and the workers are taking the leaves and slices of apple readily. I have had to modify my setup slightly. When the ants first went into the setup they tried to start a second tiny fungus garden in the second larger container. Well this fungus didnt take off and after a couple of days they merged it with the origanal fungus garden. I have noticed the past few days a large pile of dead fungus in the corner of the second larger container , this is not a concern as i know the bottom layer of fungus is constantly dieing while new fungus is growing on top. But the location of the dump chamber isnt desirable for when i need to empty it and that is where im hoping a fungus garden will go. So i have added anouther small container the same size as the queen one and placed the trashed fungus-dead ant pile in this container. hoping they will use it , Well it took them a few days but now they have starting dumping there rubbish in here which is great because its easy to remove and clean out without disturbing the colony.

Well thats my fairly quick short update

Regards

Adam

ps, Pictures and maybe a video i will upload soon , just waiting for these lenses still

[Andie]

Great , yes they are very quick that supplier , the Tiles usally come extremly quick aswell

I look forward to your setup mate , Will you be taking pictures of progress building it and setting it up ?

I'm hoping to start putting it together next week now i think i have all the bits to make a start. As far as pic are concerned it depends how i cope with the joints lol.

The 13 mm tube, is that large enough to let through all the castes sizes except the queen as it looking a bit tight ? and thanks for all the links

[adam james]

Hello Andie , The 13 mm tube lets all caste throu and i had a large soldier worker in there and it got throu fine but you could see that was the maximum size of caste it will allow , also the workers are bringing leaf throu the tubing absolutly fine aswell. The queen has tried to move throu it but she carnt. I will advise thou try and make the 13mm tube not too long in length and dont put any corners in it , i tried it and the ants got throu ok still but leaf cuttings were getting caught around the corners of the joints and causing a blockage for awhile.

also your welcome mate im glad i can help

[Niko Holstege]

Hey Adam!

First of all, you've got a really great topic going on here! I've been reading it with a lot of interest, you've got some really good info and links, thanks! Really hope to see some pictures of the colony and their progress soon

As of yesterday I'm also the owner of a beautiful Atta cephalotes colony. Ordered them from Antstore with a 24 hour delivery service and they arrived in perfect health. Once I can obtain a camera I will probably also start my own blog here.
However, I have a little question for now... The ants arrived in a small container with some leaves and the fungus on a few pieces of wet (toilet?)paper. For now I've placed the whole thing in one of the nest's chambers, together with paper on which they still live now. They are doing fine, attending the fungus, which grows allready, and seem to like their new box. However, in one of your earlier post you say that you moved the whole fungus, so I was wondering, were yours also on a paper and is it really nescessary to remove them from it? I'm a bit afraid of causing stress... and I've also not been able to get the brisque tiles yet (instead i have some chambers with moist granulates which keep the whole setup in perfect moisture, but I have not put them in the queen's chamber...so when I remove the paper the fungus would be on just plastic?!)

With regards,
Niko

[adam james]

Hi Niko Im glad you like my topic , and congratulations on getting some leaf cutting ants .

Yes my ants came in a small tub with a small fungus garden and it had damp toilet tissue in there aswell. There were several reasons why i moved my colony , the 1st was because i wanted to minimise the stress so i moved them straight into my setup to get it over and done with , the 2nd reason was due to the tissue , it might dry the air and absorb moisture too much in the tub. The 3rd reason was it was going to be far easy to move the colony now while small then when it builds up and you have loads of workers running about .

May i ask what sort of granules are you using ? and also i wouldent advise putting a small fungus garden on to just plastic it may cause to many problems. Im not sure about granules as i tend to find any substrate the ants can grab tends to be collected and used to cover the fungus garden eventually. Bisque tiles are basically unglazed tiles so maybe try and search for some unglazed tiles if you have a pottery place near you , maybe try google search, Ebay ?.

If you need any more help feel free to ask

[Niko Holstege]

Hey Adam,

Thanks for your quick reply!

I agree with your arguments on the tissue so I will move the colony after my work today.

So far I've used the Seramis granulates I got from Antstore. However, your predictions came true, last night the ants started moving the granules around and now a lot of them are in the chamber where the fungus is. So far they are a mile away from hurting the fungus, but eventually they will, so I'll have to get another solution for that as well. I've looked for the bisque tiles in stores allready but haven't been able to find them. I'll go to a big store again tonight, hopefully they'll have them. If not, I think I will just smash some unglazed terracotta pot's that you can buy for plants. The pieces will probably not be entirly flat, but at least its better than the granulates to put the colony on! Eventually I can order the bisque tiles from the link you posted earlier and hopefully replace the terracotta ones.

Greetz!
Niko

[adam james]

Hello Niko i noticed you were in the netherlands , so i googled a supplier for bisque tiles and found this link , i hope it helps you.

Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar

The terracotta pot idea should be ok but i would advise maybe waiting till you can get the tiles first then move the ants unless the tiles are to long to be delivered. The granules will be ok and i wouldent of thort they would hurt the fungus , its just they will cover the fungus and it will make observing them hard to do.The problem is once you have moved them id advise trying your best not to move them again because they would of settled and once the garden gets bigger it is very easily damaged. The ants will repair this damage but what you dont want to do is stress the queen out more.

Maybe we should ask Antstore if they would be so kind as to Stock Bisque tiles ????

[Niko Holstege]

Hey Adam,

Thanks for the link and your help, I really appreciate your quick responses! I'll will try to order them today.
However, the ants are putting huge piles of granules next to the fungus now, on top of the paper. I'm a bit afraid it will all collapse on the fungus and queen, so I'll guess I have to move them today anyway (and maybe they can start a new fungus on brisque later?) I was just at the building market store, and noticed they had normal glazed tiles with a porous back. Wouldn't it be possible to use these and then place them upside down (with glazed part to the plastic)? Or are the brisque tiles really better? And why?

And yes, let's ask Antstore to do that

[adam james]

I'm a bit afraid it will all collapse on the fungus and queen, so I'll guess I have to move them today anyway (and maybe they can start a new fungus on brisque later?)

Hi Niko , becarfull when you move the fungus , make sure you collect all the fungus garden because they cannot make anouther without using part of the garden they are supplied with. Once that dies the colony will die also so be really carefull with moving the garden. Also the tiles that are glazed on one side are no good , upside down they will absorb moisture but this will just collect on the surface like a puddle effect because it carnt drain away under the tile. The fungus will not tolerate sitting in water even if its a 1mm thick will cause the garden to start to rot. .

The bisque tiles are really like a condensed gypsum or ytong block , they absorb moisture like tissue paper but with the gravity the excess water drains underneith, most tiles have groves underneith which holds the tile milimeteres off the floor of the container , this is where the excess water stays untill the bisque tile drys out abit and then it absorbs this water. That is this will only work as long as the tiles are not over watered

If you are moving the ants i suggest first sitting in a really well lit room , place your container with the colony on a large sheet of white paper or you could use a table with a light surface.surface needs to be slippery i mean not cloth !! or the workers will hold on and it will be impossible to collect them. Put the container you are transferring them to next to the container there in so you dont have to move from your seat. I suggest using a table spoon and a small paint brush , (the really small brushes kids paint with). You use the spoon to scoop up the garden and queen ( She should be curled up in the fungus garden when you disturb them. Gently brush the small fungus garden with the queen onto the spoon then gently lift it out and then lower it where you want it and slowly brush it off. You will have to be quick as the workrs will be going mad. The workers can be brushed up easily , a quick brush underneith them and they usally cling on for a few seconds , long enougth to tap them onto the fungus garden. Any remaining fungus can gently brushed up onto the spoon and then slowly brushed off onto the fungus garden. Also look out for larva ,pupae in the remaining stuff left behind as they do get scattered but a good eye should be able to pick these out. If you have trouble getting the rest of the workers out of the old container i usally turn it upside down over the table , give it a light bang so some workers drop onto the table then sweep these up by the brush method i explained already repeat this as many times as you need untill all workers are tapped into the new container, you should find if the colony is small 50 -100 , this all should take about 30 minutes. Once done leave them well alone for the rest of the day and night , then tommorow start offering food. They need to reorganise the garden again and the queen needs to settle down because she needs to get back to egg laying.

Dont rush , take your time,be carfull , and watch out if theres any soldiers they have a nasty bite !! also always move the fungus garden and queen first !, the workers wont stay in the new container without the queen and garden there.

This is how i moved mine and its the bestest way i have found but its my opinion and isnt law lol , it also means any mites or bugs ( i had jumping mite things with mine) that may be in the fungus are usally left behind.

Hope that helps abit more.

[Niko Holstege]

Thanks again for the good advice for moving the ants. I've got a whole setup prepared, so it will hopefully be fine. I'll let you know how it developed

On the bisque tiles; the link you gave me is unfortunately not so good after all The site doesn't seem to ship outside of the USA? for now. I've send them a mail, but have no reply yet.

So, i've been thinking a lot and came up with the idea of a gypsum plate. I can make one myself (even with grooves on one site) and it could be finished within a few hours. Would that be a good idea? Gypsum is also pretty porous and once it has dried it will probably not fall apart again...
Otherwise it would maybe be possible to get the whole layer of glazing of a normal tile with some sanding paper (hope that is the good word ) or just use a glazed tile upside down and also not overwater it (in that case the water would be absorbed also, there's just no extra draining function so watering the tile should be done with care...

Well, if you have some more thougths on the subject let me know, if not, thanks for all your help so far

[adam james]

The gypsum plate idea sounds good and im sure that would work ,O right ok i didnt know where that place was i assumed it was near you. I dont think youd be able to sand the glazing off the tile because the tiles absorb moisture and the glazing paint would of been absorbed into the tile so sanding it off wont make much of a diffrence to be honest.

I think the gypsum tile will be your best idea i think.

Goodluck and i look forward to the pictures

[Niko Holstege]

Ok well; I've made my own gypsum tile tonight, completely with a extra drainage area underneath it, so hopefully that will work for now The gypsum seems to get a little weak when it gets wet, hopefully the ants ignore it and don't start to bite it...

After that I moved the colony onto their new gypsum plate. Everything went very easy and fine! Thanks for the brush idea, it worked very good with the tinyest ants, probably a lot better than the claspers I use on my other ants The fungus I got from Antstore was placed/growing on a bramble leaf and I've decided to let it stay on there... evenually it will die/rot away, but I guessed the ants would be able to manage that, they are still leaf-cutters in the end. The moving of the leaf with a bend spoon was very easy and the fungus didn't break or was damaged at all. The ants are now exploring their new area and seem to like it...most of them are already continuing their 'daily' routine and are attending the fungus and drinking from the apple which was there already, they seem to love it a lot! I hope they'll do fine on their new ground.

So, as I was looking through all the forum post I noticed that everyone's queen is always on top of the fungus. Mine however is always sitting next to it on the leaf... Sometimes she looks into the closest holes in the fungus but she rarely sits on it, would that be normal? The workers are still cleaning her and walking on top of her, so she's still connected to the colony very closely.

Also I was really wondering if you keep your ants completely in the dark, or if you give them a light/dark cycle? I read somewhere that Atta's don't seem to mind a 12 hour dark/light cycle, but since they naturally live underground, a 24 hour dark period would seem more natural, how is your experience with that?

Ow..and on the pictures, I'll get to borrow a very good macro camera in a 3 weeks. Until than I'll upload some pictures with another camera and start an own blog soon!

[adam james]

Well sounds like they are doing well , They should leave the gypsum alone , but it depends on how solid it stays together. Regarding the queen sitting on the fungus , my queen moves all over it , at the moment she is sitting to the side and clinging onto it. They do need to be in direct contact with the fungus garden so as long as she is not sitting away from it i assume she should be ok , When the fungus garden grows bigger you will proberly notice they will build the fungus around her and she will sit in a small fungus chamber.

Now the lighting i have found no problem , My setup has low wattage strip lights above each shelf the containers are on and i leave the lights on all the time when im there , i only turn them off when i go out and at weekend they are usally on the whole time. My ants dont seem to mind and everything carrys on as normal.

I look forward to your pictures and Blog

Ps, My new macro lenses have just arrived , so i will be taking pictures after work and will update soon

Regards

Adam

[Niko Holstege]

Thanks for the answers on the light and queen's location. I noticed today that the queen was sitting on the fungus again and the ants haven't tried to bite the gypsum, so it seems to be going fine. So far I've also been using low wattage light bulbs and they also seem fine with it. Whenever I light one of my other colony's the ants go crazy, but the Atta's don't even seem to notice it. Very nice for observing them

I look forward to your pictures, have fun with your new macro lenses!

Greetz
Niko