Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Hello, I decided to start updating my journal in this forum also. You can check the beginning of this journey here: http://www.formiculture.com/topic/3980- ... ed-020517/

This is the only Atta sexdens colony that survived and seems to be doing well, a lot of brood and collecting plant material every day. I'll start building their permanent formicarium soon.
Here is a video update of today(Also check the other videos of this colony in my channel to see their growth):

Update 02-11-17
OBS: Just realized that I can't change the main post title, so if an admin could remove the date would be great.
A lot of changes.
Since I haven't updated the journal in almost a week some thinks changed. That brood chamber from the last video is now completely covered and I could spot 2 new small brood chambers on the top of the fungus.
The fungus is getting bigger as always and I'll have to move them soon before it gets too big. I plan taking first the queen and placing her in the new setup and then place a piece of paper under the whole fungus and take it to the new setup. A very risky move but they probably will not move completely by themselves.
They keep placing the corn flocks in the fungus, but they aren't taking some of the plants that I used to give them so I'm trying new ones.

Looks great.. queens are quite something aren't they!!

Thats what you call up close and personal!!

I took the lid off for you

Thanks for the answers! Andyj, the lid was already off hahaha but thanks, looks awesome with those vivid colors.
Here's another update.

Your colony has the size of almost a year old colony in the wild. Looks amazing. I would think you would be able to fill that container within 6 months. What are your long term plans for expansion? Once they get over a certain level, probably in around 6 months or so, their expansion is exponential. They will double numbers every couple of months. Then the fun begins!

I have a 1,5m bookcase with 5 shelves that I plan placing the 20x20x20 boxes that will be their chambers, it will be easy to connect new chambers as they grow, but I'll have to limit their grow somehow because I don't have that much time to spend in the hobby.

Update 02-24-17

They accepted the corn flocks.
I don't know how it impacts the fungus but they don't seem to use too much of it. They keep growing and started to consume again a larger quantity.
I think I managed to record what seems to be a larger harvester or a small major(check 3:05 in the video the worker is trying to hide it), I can be wrong because it's hard to tell just looking at the pupae but it's head looks very big.

Update 02-27-17

New caste eclosed!
The new harvesters eclosed in the last days, some of them still have their soft exoskeleton.
I think I could see in the video a really big pupae, probably a major. I hope to see majors in the next week or a little bit later. It takes about 1 week to the pupae turn into worker, but since it's a major I imagine that It takes a little bit longer. They keep consuming a lot and seem to be doing great.