Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Thats probably correct. I would be very interested in the stats from within the cylinder. You could contribute a lot to the overall understanding of environmental control by recording the temperature and humidity inside the chamber and immediately outside the chamber over a 24 hour period with measurements every hour or so. I am interested in how the ants control these parameters and am always looking for data.

This proves my theory on ventilation within these units! I agree with Andrew about what happens when it grows to meet the sides or lid! With my current project I'm certainly going to recommend that vents are covered up until the fungus has grown to the roof or maybe offer a 2 lid system so a different vented lid can be added when the fungus has hit the roof! Excellent post btw, that's some fab fungus! I will look forward to updates! X

I think the mechanism for this would be that the closer the fungus gets to the sides, the more disturbance there will be to the air. The ants passing close to the sides will effectively cause there to be a flow of air which will in turn remove the condensation. Also the fungus respires and so produces heat which, when it is very close to the side wall, will raise the temperature in that location and hence remove the condensation. In theory this should prove to be the case throughout the container as the fungus fills the area.

It will be interesting to see what happens, what you said makes sense Andrew though I never had any condensation like that from start to finish of any of the 3 large fungus gardens my Atta had done.
I'm sure this was because of the unit they where housed in, it provided 360 degrees of equal temperature exposure around the box.

My Atta cephalotes colony today:

Absolutely fantastic! really great video and love the style of your set up. Great to observe everything that goes on.

Yes, thank you.

Nice setup. Are the ants using the dump chamber. Looked a little like they were. In situations where they do not, for cephalotes, and other species that dump underground (the majority) it is helpful to differentiate the level of the dump chamber so it is lower than the fungus. If they are using this as a dump chamber then great but at that level they are as likely to put fungus in there and dump in the feeding area. I am interested in what feeding regime you use. Do you offer one food type per day and then another the next or do you offer mixed.

Would be great to see an update of this thread and see how the colony is doing now.

Updates?