Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2010 22:53:16 GMT 1
Hey, so a last minute thread before I leave on vacation...
What ant species have been easiest for you to keep? It may be because how well they did in population, how easy it was to feed them or other ant keeping related things.
For me, the top three...in order
1. Pheidole hyatti. Only had one colony fail and that was my very first one, didn't know how to take care of them at the same time. Second colony got about 50-100 brood of various stages, and I gave it to a friend. My current colony I've had since December 7th. They are easy because they are very bad at escaping. Which surprised me, since if they get on your finger, its hard as heck to get them off. Escaping is usually a big problem for me for small ants. Easy to feed, though don't eat any seeds I give them for some reason, but they eat most other stuff...do well in population, but not so much it becomes too much to handle.
2. Pogonomyrmex californicus. Very easy to care for, couldn't escape at all and grew in population really quick. Only reason they failed is because I used too much sand and it collapsed on them, killing them all.
3. Solenopsis xyloni. Unlike my Solenopsis invicta colony...these were a lot easier to keep. Had them for a year, and then re-released them back into the valley. Which they are still there last I checked, but hibernating now. Didn't really care about escaping too much, easy to feed and were generally easy. Only reason I rank this below Pogonomyrmex was, I did occasionally have escaping problems, and they grew in numbers a bit too quick.
My Solenopsis invicta colony did really well, they were my first successful species I kept. Got over 100,000 ants in 6 months...and that was when I started running into a lot of problems. I never had experience with taking care of so many ants like I do now, and at the time, I didn't have the good containers I use now.
What ant species have been easiest for you to keep? It may be because how well they did in population, how easy it was to feed them or other ant keeping related things.
For me, the top three...in order
1. Pheidole hyatti. Only had one colony fail and that was my very first one, didn't know how to take care of them at the same time. Second colony got about 50-100 brood of various stages, and I gave it to a friend. My current colony I've had since December 7th. They are easy because they are very bad at escaping. Which surprised me, since if they get on your finger, its hard as heck to get them off. Escaping is usually a big problem for me for small ants. Easy to feed, though don't eat any seeds I give them for some reason, but they eat most other stuff...do well in population, but not so much it becomes too much to handle.
2. Pogonomyrmex californicus. Very easy to care for, couldn't escape at all and grew in population really quick. Only reason they failed is because I used too much sand and it collapsed on them, killing them all.
3. Solenopsis xyloni. Unlike my Solenopsis invicta colony...these were a lot easier to keep. Had them for a year, and then re-released them back into the valley. Which they are still there last I checked, but hibernating now. Didn't really care about escaping too much, easy to feed and were generally easy. Only reason I rank this below Pogonomyrmex was, I did occasionally have escaping problems, and they grew in numbers a bit too quick.
My Solenopsis invicta colony did really well, they were my first successful species I kept. Got over 100,000 ants in 6 months...and that was when I started running into a lot of problems. I never had experience with taking care of so many ants like I do now, and at the time, I didn't have the good containers I use now.