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The Darkwun |
Tetramorium eggs not developing |
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ok I have caught 18 queens around 6/1-6/3 I have them set up in test tubes. 3 TT with a single queen the rest 2-4 queens. They all have piles of eggs for
almost 30 days now and none have developed. A few of the eggs are turning brown and drying up. What do you think the problem is? BTW I took 2 queens out, feed
them and put them in a dirt setup( I'm thinking its the water) to see if the eggs will develop. Oh incase you're wondering they queens ARE mated and
came from 3 different locations.
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Reacker |
#1 | |||
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Whats the average temp you have them at? My guess would be bacterial infection if its not the temperature being too low.
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The Darkwun |
#2 | |||
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uhh its between 72-76 and I ruled that out since my Pheidole, Camponotus and a whole Tetramorium has developing brood. If it is a bacterial infection whats the
best thing to do? Move them to a new TT?
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Reacker |
#3 | |||
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I honestly couldn't tell you. Moving them would be the first step if possible, but for it to be on all of your queens it could be something about your room
or wherever you are keeping them and thats assuming it is bacterial. I suppose I would try just absolutely sterilizing an entire tube setups worth of stuff.
You could try immersion in rubbing alcohol for a while which would probably kill off anything. I would then move just one queen and only the queen, no brood,
and place her in the new tube. Feed her but use new food that is from a different source than anything you are using now so she has enough energy to raise new
eggs. Also try using distilled water.
But really I couldn't tell you. Might also be some sort of mites on them so place newspaper down where ever you put the new setup cause I've heard that it is might resistant and I haven't had problem so far with is when I was raising fruit flies. Really everything is conjecture so definitely search into other options. |
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Antimidation |
#4 | |||
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are you using test glass tubes or plastic? It all really depends on the confined space. if theres no enough humidity they will not develop. The test tube set
up is probably the single most guaranteed way for success in the early stages. The CD case setup has worked really great for me before as well. As long as you
have some moisture they should do well.
Formidable Formica!
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The Darkwun |
#5 | |||
Antimidation wrote: They are plastic, the same kind i used on my Camponotus and Lasius(who have pupa now) only Tetra eggs don't develop while others do no problem.
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MrILoveTheAnts |
#6 | |||
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Don't certain insecticides stop the larval stages of insects from developing? Could the queen have been infected?
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s3rca |
#7 | |||
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I am having a similar problem with one of my Tetramorium queens, who just so happens to also be kept in a plastic test tube. I have nine others who are all
contained within a sand setup and have already started to develop pupae. The queen in question was caught approximatly two weeks before the other 9 and
I've noticed her eggs have always been an orangish brown in comparison to the eggs of my other queens.
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The Darkwun |
#8 | |||
s3rca wrote: Same problem here...I have 2 queens in a dirt setup so I won't know anything for another week or so...Now I did use new testtubes, sterilzed them with
alcohol, used distilled water and still having same issue. Currently i'm thinking of feeding them again and putting them in a hydrostone setup.
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Reacker |
#9 | |||
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You both use plastic tubes, the obvious next step would be to switch to glass to see if the plastic tubes are somehow toxic When I did a larger project with
this species to measure founding times with different numbers of queens:
http://antfarm.yuku.com/topic/1201 http://krungkuene.org/imgant/pic/100_2863.jpg The majority of my colonies and queens were successful in founding colonies with very few brood casualties. I used all glass test tubes. |
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Doctorant |
#10 | |||
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Moving to keeping ants....
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