Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Hi guys

Im.looking at getting a small colony of Acro in a aquarium setup.

Before I add ants just a few questions.

1. Do I fill the fungus container with soil or leave it empty?
2. I will have an additional 4 runs for them to expand and put rubbish in etc. Do I open all 4 at the beginning?
3. How effective is rubbing alcohol and talc mix with them?
4. Will they try to eat fake grass? Instead of a thin branch to travel to the leaves I was going to cover a strip of perspex on the fake grass.

Cheers Graeme

HI Graeme,

I would say fill the first chamber half with soil. A good garden centre soil would do it.

I wouldn't worry about opening up the new chambers right from the off. Certainly if you have a reasonable number of ants in the colony (>20 say).

I've not used rubbing alcohol and talc but I can say that the PTFE sort of formulas you can buy are great (Antstore Germany I got mine but postage is a bitch - I'm sure there are UK alternatives). I would have thought that alcohol and talc would work though.

At the start they won't "eat" fake grass but as the colony grows inevitably the ants will probably chew the odd bit off. Mine did when I had some fake plants sticking out of the aquarium water.

I hope that helps.

Best of luck

Sorry for delay, been working overseas.
As Richard says, but give the ants a restrictive space to begin with and then open up new area as they need them. Too much space is difficult to control and you will find the colony is more unpredictable and may even move everything into another area if they can. They will chew away at the fake grass but it will probably survive for a while. When the colony gets bigger and there are spare workers they'll pretty much destroy it but you will get some time before this happens.

Thanks guys

I've got most of it set up now but cannot get the humidity below 99% as I have put a lid over the aquarium so the glass is always wet. I've bought a magnetic cleaner so clear the view but is that humidity ok? Looking at acro's.

Also will the fungus be ok in the soul? Read elsewhere not to put it on soil but others are saying I should... confused lol

I'll post pics when on the pc

Hi Graeme, looking good so far. I went down the incubator route with my Acro's as i didn't like the thought of the queen falling into the water below, although the aquarium method is a tried and tested way of doing things. The condensation on the side will be due to the difference of the outside air temps which is another reason i chose a different set up. Anyway, two of my acros nests are just sat on casting plaster and the other on clay balls. I did try adding some compost but found it just gets messy as they will move it around trying to seal any gaps in their nest pods. If your going to use soil then don't ad any water to it as it will probably stay moist, and make sure there is a small hole to drain any excess water if it does get to wet. 99% RH will be just fine and won't hurt if it falls a bit, Acro's are quite tolerant to slight changes but best if you can keep it pretty stable.

Many thanks Andy

What do you mean by the incubator route? I still have not got the ants, so not 100% set to the wet set up

Basically it's just an insulated heated box maintained at 25 c ( ish ) where the nest will be inside another container. Have a look at my journal here viewtopic.php?f=13&t=684 or my blog in my sig.

Good effort Greame, I can see you have put some real time into your set up. If you are concerned about spending a wad of cash on ants I'd probably go for the soil set up, I did with my first colony, it's good as they adjust the climate to suit. The issue is it can be quite boring initially when the colony is small as you are looking at them constantly and just see a few ants a day sometimes lol, I know it drove me nuts but they do soon grow.

Thanks Deansie - ive also installed a pipe run for them but capped it off for now - didnt see the point in fitting it with hundreds of ants trying to escape lol