The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Hello, I just bought the Omninest small. I put it together and hydrated the sponges. My question is, do I still have to have a test tube full of water and cotton for them to drink, or will they drink from the hydration sponges? Thanks in advance.

The sponges are for hydrating the nest (humidity), you still need to place a test tube of water for them. They will drink from those sponges (one or both if you use them in the nest) but it's much easier from them to drink from the cotton then try and drink thru the wire mesh that you put in the bottom corners to keep them from getting into the sponge area.

Just a heads up on two things, #1 they will try to get into the sponge areas and if they do they most likely will start digging tunnels along it's edges. #2 take 3 small pieces of tape and place them over the small water filling holes above the sponges, the reason is because if they do get into the sponge areas they will sooner or later make their way to those holes and escape. My Solenopsis did just that but I have some very fine mesh placed over those holes to keep them from escaping.

Ok, that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure. Those tiny little holes are for water? I soaked the sponges. I would think that it would be hard to soak those sponges if you just dropped water in those tiny holes. I have Tetramorium sp. Hopefully, they're not too crafty.

use a syrynge or a medicine dropper. I found that the medicine dropper sometimes leaves pools of water on the top. I stick a needle down the hole to pop any air bubbles and then the water is absorbed.

I just took the tops of them off and was able to get them wet a lot easier. That way I wasn’t fiddling with the holes. I may have the newer model of omninest though. Maybe the older ones don’t have a cover you can remove. Thanks for the ideas though if I decide to not take the cover off.

Yes, they can be removed, but the sponge will evaporate very quickly, and if the sponges move around or fall out, the mesh will also shift allowing ants into that chamber where they can escape and dig tunnels in your sponge.