White fuzzy mold in ant tower

[nikkirichards03]

I just moved a colony of ghost ants (tapinoma melanocephalum) into an ac ant tower. It took me forever to get them to move out of my tarantula's old tank, but they're FINALLY moved in.

Here's the problem: when I was trying to encourage them to move I put a drop of syrup on a rock in the middle. One time I was adding a new drop and too much came out and dripped down the side of the rock into the substrate (I'm using coconut fiber because they didn't like the sand). Now there's a layer of fuzzy white mold on top of the substrate on half the tower, as well as on the sides of the rock. They finally moved in and are super active and I don't want to accidentally squish anyone trying to remove a layer of substrate in such a small area. Is there a way to deal with the mold without disturbing the ants? The workers are crawling all over the it while foraging and I'm worried about them dragging spores in to the queen and contaminating the brood.

[AntsLuxembourg]

Hello there,

I think if I'm right this might just be the usual mold that would grow if something is too wet. I got that with my herbs in the kitchen. Like I sometimes add too much water so the soil stays moist for too long. So what I do if I think it's too much I remove the top layer a little bit or scrap of the mold. Also if the mold doesn't seem to affect the ants they should be fine. You could also use a second tower to give them a choice. About the spores I am sure that the spores are already inside the nest itself so yeah. Mold spores usually more very easily since they are small and stick to everything.

Anyway I wouldn't worry too much about it for now. You can try removing some of the mold and see if it grows back easily or not but yeah you might kill some of the ants by accident. But that kind of stuff happens to ants all over the world all the time. They get stomped on every now and then, eaten by animals or killed in other ways. It's called nature and survival of the fittest.

All you can do is trying to support your colony. I also don't try to interfere too much unless it's the best option. Like in the case of my messor barbarus colony which needed to move for hibernation, I had to give a little help to move them all into their new home.
I sadly destroyed some of the eggs but that kind of stuff happens. I managed to move 95% of the colony tho so everything is in order.