Post by Stapleburger on Nov 25, 2013 16:04:46 GMT
ooooh, this is causing me some trouble, so I'm hoping to probe your far more-experienced minds to get the correct solution rather than trying to re-invent the wheel!
My problem is this: how to get the heat JUST right for my little Messor Barbs so that they are comfortable and active, but not frazzled.
The environment in which they currently reside is my home office, which is unheated during most of the day and night. It's 13.8 Celsius in here right now, and I have got a hat on plus two pairs of socks, and am giving serious consideration to slippers - not ideal for my friends from southern Europe. This means that some background heat is required at all times, and some intensive heat is required during daylight hours.
For folks with good central heating, I suspect this isn't a problem, but it isn't practical to heat the house just to get the temperature perfect for the ants, so I have to look at my alternatives which seem to be;
Of the two I went for the mat, due to the significantly lower associated running cost. The keen-eyed among you will have already noticed a 'thrifty' trend in my approach towards heating!
The colony I am trying to get going first resides in a basin purchased a few years ago from ant-store. It is 20cm x 10cm by 10cm in height (I.e small) - it also came with one of those worm-farm type nests, but I'm planning to use that for some Lasius niger at some point in the future . In order to provide the correct temperature I bought a 7w habistat heat mat.
The first thing I did was to put the mat underneath the basin - I now know that this was the wrong thing to do as it made it far too hot, and everyone ran out of the test-tube and started to climb on stuff. Also, I understand that there are fire risks with this approach,so I moved the mat away. Next I tried to raise the small tank away from the heat mat with some pencils, but it got too hot again, so I abandoned this approach. Given the small size of the tank, putting the mat only partially under the tank to give a heat gradient doesn't seem practical.
At the moment I have put the heat mat on the side of the tank, so that the heat is radiated in, and I also have a 69 watt bulb close to the tank shining down.
The result is that it appears to nearly be hot enough. The temperature at the test tube seems to be about 20 Celsius, and the ants aren't active for the majority of the day. However, when the house central heating comes on about 18:00, the background temperature of the room increases to something in the region of a (balmy) 26. At this point the ants send out a couple of scouts to look for their tea and I take my hat off.
My problem is therefore, how to get the temperature just right without using large amounts of energy? Is it better to put the tank into an outer container, a bit like a reptile vivarium, and then heat the outer container with the mat? Is it better to use a heat mat with a thermostat? If so how do I ensure that the temperature is correct, and I am not overheating the soil whilst the air temperature above is cooler at the same time as not giving the ants a wire to run up and escape? Maybe a bigger tank with a heat gradient is better, but then where do I put the test-tube nest given that the temperature may vary a lot in my office where a wide range of temperature is experienced?
I suspect that the answer will vary between all of you, so I would be really grateful to learn some examples of your ant-heating ingenuity.
Thank you all
My problem is this: how to get the heat JUST right for my little Messor Barbs so that they are comfortable and active, but not frazzled.
The environment in which they currently reside is my home office, which is unheated during most of the day and night. It's 13.8 Celsius in here right now, and I have got a hat on plus two pairs of socks, and am giving serious consideration to slippers - not ideal for my friends from southern Europe. This means that some background heat is required at all times, and some intensive heat is required during daylight hours.
For folks with good central heating, I suspect this isn't a problem, but it isn't practical to heat the house just to get the temperature perfect for the ants, so I have to look at my alternatives which seem to be;
- Heat lamps, or
- Heat mats.
Of the two I went for the mat, due to the significantly lower associated running cost. The keen-eyed among you will have already noticed a 'thrifty' trend in my approach towards heating!
The colony I am trying to get going first resides in a basin purchased a few years ago from ant-store. It is 20cm x 10cm by 10cm in height (I.e small) - it also came with one of those worm-farm type nests, but I'm planning to use that for some Lasius niger at some point in the future . In order to provide the correct temperature I bought a 7w habistat heat mat.
The first thing I did was to put the mat underneath the basin - I now know that this was the wrong thing to do as it made it far too hot, and everyone ran out of the test-tube and started to climb on stuff. Also, I understand that there are fire risks with this approach,so I moved the mat away. Next I tried to raise the small tank away from the heat mat with some pencils, but it got too hot again, so I abandoned this approach. Given the small size of the tank, putting the mat only partially under the tank to give a heat gradient doesn't seem practical.
At the moment I have put the heat mat on the side of the tank, so that the heat is radiated in, and I also have a 69 watt bulb close to the tank shining down.
The result is that it appears to nearly be hot enough. The temperature at the test tube seems to be about 20 Celsius, and the ants aren't active for the majority of the day. However, when the house central heating comes on about 18:00, the background temperature of the room increases to something in the region of a (balmy) 26. At this point the ants send out a couple of scouts to look for their tea and I take my hat off.
My problem is therefore, how to get the temperature just right without using large amounts of energy? Is it better to put the tank into an outer container, a bit like a reptile vivarium, and then heat the outer container with the mat? Is it better to use a heat mat with a thermostat? If so how do I ensure that the temperature is correct, and I am not overheating the soil whilst the air temperature above is cooler at the same time as not giving the ants a wire to run up and escape? Maybe a bigger tank with a heat gradient is better, but then where do I put the test-tube nest given that the temperature may vary a lot in my office where a wide range of temperature is experienced?
I suspect that the answer will vary between all of you, so I would be really grateful to learn some examples of your ant-heating ingenuity.
Thank you all