Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

It can be a problem with a large exhibit that the soil you put in up to a couple of years ago is potentially not fresh and fit for purpose. Also the ants are producing waste constantly that needs to be gotten rid of. Obviously a dump chamber deals with much of this problem but where this is not available I used a technique which actually allow the keepers and the ants to solve this problem together.
Here's the pictures






So you can see from above that I have rested a stick against the inner wall of the moat in such a way that the ants cannot escape by walking along the stick. Then I attached another stick vertically and this stick hangs above a bucket. So the ants very quickly start to carry old soil and exhausted fungus along the branch until the end where they drop it. Over the course of a week the bucket fills up and when it is full it can be emptied. But also, at this time a fresh bucket of soil is emptied into the nest. In this way, over a period of a year or so, the entire soil in the nest is changes without a bit of disturbance or problem.

Do you not find they dump it in the moat?

They dump it as far from the nest as they can because its a disease risk. Normally the moat is as far as they can get it so they dump it there. If you let them go further they will ALWAYS dump it down the branch.

Right got you, that's useful thing to know. They always dumped it in the water when I used the moat set up but that was as far as they could.

I've got a tank on the floor connected to the QEII colony, it's connected via pipes and it's used all the time by the ants to remove waste, they do have to carry it through the feeding chamber and a fair distance down but they appear to like it! Being cooler on the floor it doesn't honk either!

Mine was 3rd tub and nest tub was in middle and ant world 1st tub

I've got a three pod set up, fungus in left pod, middle for feeding with the waste chamber on far right pod! It's worth noting if you clean the waste pod out, save a tea spoonful of waste (crap) to put back in, the scent reassures the ants and they continue to dump in the same chamber!