Salutations... again

[Shamual]

Hi, im Jack from east Essex. I've always loved ants and have several colonies living in my room at the moment. My favorites before I kept leaf cutters for a short period of time have to be harpagnathos venator. For no other reason than that they look absolutely amazing.

I've bought from practically every ant shop in the UK and love them all! Quite frankly if it wasn't for the fantastic community revolving around ants, I would have left the hobby months ago.

I have kept acromymex octospinosus before, and those of you familiar with the old forum will have seen me panicking before they arrived. Unfortunately that colony (despite my best efforts) have passed away due to the death of the queen and the fungus. It was the setup that I put them in, that wasn't quite right and I feel terrible. However I am NOTHING if not persistent, and over the next couple of weeks I am researching everything to do with leaf cutter care to make sure that the same mistakes are not repeated. I will be using "British ants" starter setup for the new tank and have several compatible plants on order from eBay.

THIS TIME IT WILL NOT FAIL!!! (*confident uproar*)

The species I am planning to keep is atta cephalotes.

Thankyou for your time of reading my introduction and I look forward to talking to you all!

[Formica123]

Hi jack, 2elcome. Again!

[Acromyrmexbob]

Hi Jack, nice to have you back. So many people I know get it right when they come back after a failure. Your approach and concern say to me you will be fine this time. Once you get a colony its a case of asking every question that comes in to your mind, posting here like an idiot, getting advice about every breath the ants take, and getting all of the parameters right so they can start to expand and thrive. Looking forward to it.

[Deansie26]

Hola again Jack, nice to see you here and look forward to your next colony getting going.

[Britishants.com]

Thanks for the mention and you'll be pleased to hear we're trialling out various mediums that will go in these new formicariums to assist with humidity control within the garden chamber! I'm really pleased with the ventilation trials so far and we seem to have that perfectly set up. Something you might want to give some thought to would be heating! Our trial gardens are heated with a Matt. I'd recommend reading Andrews comments on heating! Maybe the tropical fish tank heater and water set up might be a safer option. Btw nice to see you back!
Regards Sean

[Formica123]

Is the heatmat placed under neath the setup? If so then this won't be too good for the fungus as I know from personal experience. I remember Andrew mentioning something about the bottom of the fungus being hotter than the top?

[Shamual]

Hi guys Im glad to be back! I knew deep down that I wasn't going to give up, even after how bad I felt after the first try. Also im slightly worried that im more excited for British ants starter set than I am for Christmas... The heart wants what the heart wants. Thanks for the update Sean! keep the hype train going! And I hope so Andrew!

I apologize in advance if I annoy the bloody heck out of you guys for the first couple of weeks when I receive the new colony!

As for heating I was trying with a few of my ants a new method of using a tray full of heated water and basically suspending the formicarium above the water, I worked OK but I realized it was kind of pointless as the same result could be achieved by using the heat mat under a baking cooling tray with the formicarium on top of the tray. I was thinking of using this method if Sean leaves heating to the customers, would this work?

[Acromyrmexbob]

Ideally you would be looking for heat from no one particular source. Heating with a heat mat below the nest chamber can cause a high temperature build up directly under the fungus garden which can kill it without there being an obvious reason when you are checking temperature in the nest chamber and finding it to be perfect. The water idea sounds good but I would sit the nest tank down into the water but on to something to raise it up by 10mm or so. This way the heat mat has to heat the bottom of the tray and then in turn the water between the tray and the base of the nest chamber before heating the chamber. I think this gives you control and provides a more gradual, gentle heat.

[Formica123]

Check out my drawing for the forum nest design project it should give you an idea for heating.

[Shamual]

I have to admit your design Formica looks fantastic. It combines the benefits from a natural setup with a more educational approach, you must need a fairly large colony though. I see how you heat it. I've talked to a few people and this seems to be the most widely used method. Oh and the fish are a nice touch lol. They have that at colchester zoo. in the moat that surrounds their feeding area. Although im new here i do have a question.

Is it safe to keep fish in a moat around the ants? as I know they are fond of chucking their rubbish in it. surely this would pollute the water?