Adding water..

Questions from those who are just starting or considering getting into the ant keeping hobby. If you’re intimidated or confused by the in-depth posts of the other sections of this forum, feel free to post here, and we'll start from square one!

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Mcrummett
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2018 12:38 pm

Adding water..

Post: # 42148Post Mcrummett
Mon Jul 23, 2018 12:43 pm

Hi all!

New to all this and have had an ant queen for a week now. Advice from the person I got her from was to pippette a little water onto the cotton wall inside the Test tube setup every 4-6 days to make sure it is moist enough.

Sure enough today I checked and the cotton wool didn’t really look wet/damn. I pippette a small amount of water onto and she instantly rushed over to where the water was added.

My question is really around whether this is best practise? Shouldn’t it go from the water reservoir and constantly keep it moist enough? Doesn’t adding water every week cause her stress?

As a beginner I am just worried about doing anything that will stress her out etc. She arrived with eggs but it’s actually hard to tell now whether they are still there or if she’s pulled at the cotton. I think they are. The temptation to keep going back and checking on her is horrible!

Silver
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2018 2:37 am
Location: Netherlands

Re: Adding water..

Post: # 46619Post Silver
Sun Aug 05, 2018 5:30 am

Yes, even I got a new queen and I am always tempted to look at her. I put her in a test tube but it cracked so I moved her to a small bottle. I must refill the water every now and then as there is no water reservoir, but she does not seem to mind. I have a Lasius Niger, which is pretty hardy. Some other species are very prone to stress. You probably added too much cotton on the reservoir so the water is not getting through to the other side of the cotton.
Keeper of Lasius Niger colony. :D

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