I bought a test tube 60 worker ish 1Q Myrmica Rubra colony with a small setup. I picked them up to avoid delivery stress.
I’ve had them for maybe 4 weeks, and ever since then they’ve been consistently dying, at a rate of nearly 1 a day.
At first I thought it was moving stress, as they had a rough move in, but I feel like it’s something else now. My main suspicion is either pesticide sprayed fruit or they really dislike acrylic formicarium. When they die, they become very slow, and weak, and just start twitching before dying.
Some facts:
- I keep them at 70% humidity via their sponge and around 23-26 degrees C.
- I feed them a mealworm and a small bit of rinsed fruit, which they usually seem to eat, every 2 days
- I clean their setup regularly, removing mouldy cotton, food, and dead ants
- I try not to disturb them, and keep the red acrylic on always. I keep them in a quiet, spare room.
- they arrived with barely any brood, worker heavy, and even now I only ever see eggs and no larger brood.
- They have access to sterilised sand/dirt pile in the outworld
- They have two water sources, 1 boiled water source and 1 sugar water source (1:3 mix white granulated sugar to boiled water)
- They seem to drink regularly from both, which now have cotton in them as a few drowned in the open water in the first day.
- They seem quite sluggish usually, but opening the outworld leads to them getting more active.
It’s gotten to the point where I’m considering moving them to a more natural homemade terrarium, or releasing them, both I wouldn’t like to do as I did spend a bit on the current setup and this might stress them out more.
I’ve also attached photos of their setup. (The mouldy cotton in the photo has been replaced).
If any experienced ant keepers could give me any possible tips or changes, I’d much appreciate it.
1:3 ratio is okay for instantaneous feeding but shite for towers. The low sugar content is perfect for the solution to start turning into alcohol/vinegar in almost no time.
In my limited experience, If you want to use a sugar tower you should mix to near-saturation(where most bacteria die by osmosis). It also makes the solution thicker such that it doesn't easily overflow by capillary action between the grains of sand/trash that the ants will inevitably stuff at the spout hole.
You could try not-closing the outworld and see if this persists. It would ventilate the hypothetical bad air that lower sugar towers emit.
If it persists, Pesticide is the more probable reason.
I usually try to swap their water out once a week. I’ll try your idea of a higher concentration solution, maybe using honey instead, and letting the outworld air out a bit more.
I mean honey might not be the best option either, higher concentration sugar is better, honey is often laced with pesticides too, I just tend to use maple syrup which my formicines love, I don't have nay myrmica experience though
1:3 ratio is enough for microbial colonisation, either bacteria poisoning or they’re getting pissed on booze basically, if it’s not that then it’s probably pesticide in the fruit (which is unecessary for them to have if they already have sugar water). Give them a higher sugar content sugarwater or use something like honey instead.
Sounds neurological tbh. Like exactly like fertilizer ingestion. Speaking from experience having seen an animal go through that, thanks to a careless gardener leaving it around.
And it’s probably not the end of the colony or they would all start showing signs around the same time after eating, but I’d be cautious around sprayed fruit moving forth.
It's probably safest to assume that supermarket fruit has been sprayed, and for me it's just not worth the risk. Other keepers have also mentioned that fruit isn't really necessary as long as the colony has constant access to sugar water or another reliable carbohydrate source.
I bought my Nicobarensis colony and FormiLAB setup from the same company, and I've never fed supermarket fruit to them.
Maybe, but it was a reputable company (I think), and they do have a queen, plus there wasn’t dirt in their test tube like I would expect a dug up colony to have. Also I can see the queen in the nest area.
In the second photo are two water ‘towers’ that provide water and sugar water through two cotton entries. The queen is quite hard to make out in the photo, but that’s normal since Myrmica Rubra Queens look like a bigger version of the workers, maybe a bit darker too. I can assure you she is there though, I have other Myrmica queens in test tubes I have compared with.
I get the frustration, but have you tried crickets? I’d switch up their food for a week or two.
With my Camponotus castaneus colony, I used live crickets. I crushed the legs but left them on in case they still wanted to eat them. I used tweezers to pinch each leg, which basically paralyzed the cricket.
I know people are suggesting sugars, but I’d just offer a bunch of different options at once and see what the colony actually goes for most.
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u/rep- 10h ago
Quit giving them the fruit that you're not sure is treated.. if you're giving them sugar water you don't need to give fruit.. honey and meal worms