Today we deal with an alarming, foreign mold invasion in the ant farm setup of our new pharaoh ant colony, (species: Monomorium pharaonis) called the Tomb Raiders. The plot twist will blow you out of your seat, no pun intended!

Ants vs. Alien Mold

Previously in the Tomb Raider Saga…

Now, as the ants were eating, I noticed something strange.

AC Family, look.

Alien mold.

This is very bad news.

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Last week, we watched in excitement as our Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ant colony, received their new home, thanks to your votes, in our new YouTube Gold Play Button.

It was a magical and joyous event for the Golden Empire.

But acquiring a new home has not been so joyous for all our ants, for just nearby, our newly caught Pharaoh ant colony, you called the Tomb Raiders, had been undergoing a more challenging transition in their new massive, room-sized home.

By the way, AC Family, if you’re excited about this episode and enjoy our ant videos, please hit that LIKE button and let me know!

So, for those of you who might be new to the channel, let’s recap real quick and go back to two weeks ago.

This new Tomb Raider setup, composed of various terrariums all connected by tubing, was designed to house our newly captured colony of wild Pharaoh ants, whose menacing invasion of another one of our ant terrariums we successfully intercepted by trapping them and turning the traps into these neat terrariums.

After this video, feel free to watch the whole story in this series playlist.

The new Tomb Raiders’ 35-foot-long territories, which span the entire ant room, were pretty impressive and quite promising until we discovered these creepy growths that began making a nightmarish appearance all over the sticks and mosses.

It was some alien mold, and it didn’t look good.

So, let’s get to it!

Trying my best not to panic, we had to look at this critically.

Though the mold looked quite scary, the important question was: Was this mold dangerous to the colony?

And AC Family, to answer that, we needed to look at the facts and consider two possibilities.

The first possibility was that this was a non-lethal mold.

Most ants, being natural residents of soil, are generally adapted to deal with most molds and fungi which naturally occur in a terrestrial environment.

In fact, their lifestyle is built to work with molds and keep mold growth regulated.

You see, ants are super clean and sterile animals.

They don’t just leave their trash lying around to fester.

Like humans, they establish a designated garbage site to which they carry their trash, and from there, they leave it to natural critters like springtails and molds to further break down the garbage safely.

Some ants have underground chambers that they make their garbage sites, and then when these chambers are full, they simply block off the entrances to these garbage rooms with soil and leave it to the springtails and molds to break them down.

Ants, like humans, also have a designated bathroom area for the same reason, which again creates an isolated site for molds and other life forms to feed and grow.

They don’t just defecate anywhere in the nest.

Even the young are built to be clean. They poop just once in their entire larval stage, and it is contained in a meconium, which appears as a little black dot on cocoons or a white dot on naked pupae.

That way, no poop lays around the nursery chambers for molds to get out of control inside the nest.

Also, as we saw in last week’s video, ants transfer their food mouth-to-mouth through a process called trophallaxis, and the food is carried inside their bodies.

This way, food is kept sterile and isn’t left lying around the nest for endangering molds to grow.

Finally, worker ants are constantly licking and cleaning the young and themselves to make sure mold doesn’t grow on them or the young.

So, in light of all this, it was assuring to me that perhaps this alien mold was not a threat to our Tomb Raiders.

The mold, after all, seemed to be growing on our natural moss and sticks, so perhaps it was more of a mold specialized on feeding on decaying organic matter and not on living ants.

Now, let’s consider our second possibility: that this alien mold is a danger to our Tomb Raiders.

Two things were of concern to me regarding this.

First, even if this mold was not attacking our ants directly, if left unchecked and allowed to completely take over the Tomb Raiders’ setup, it was possible that the ants would eventually be unable to clean all this mold’s spores from the skin of their brood, which would lead to all eggs, larvae, and pupae falling victim to the mold, and in an advanced case, proceeding to grow on and kill the worker ants and queens.

The mold would win simply by numbers.

This type of mold takeover would be a nightmare. It actually happens in the ant-keeping hobby within moldy test tubes all the time!

The second concern was the impending possibility that this fungus was one of several species of an ant-eating specialized parasitic fungus.

The ever-infamous cordyceps fungus turns adult ants into zombies, literally taking over their brains and causing them to walk to a certain location high up somewhere to become a breeding bed for their mushrooms, which, like in a terrifying science fiction horror film, break out of the zombified ants’ bodies to expel spores which go on to zombify other ants nearby.

But to me, this mold being a cordyceps or ant-zombifying mold was the least likely circumstance, mainly because it seemed to be mostly growing and feeding on the sticks and mosses.

Cordyceps and other such zombifying molds feed mainly on insects and other arthropods.

So what do you guys think? Do you think this mold is a danger to our Tomb Raiders?

Considering all the aforementioned possibilities, I felt our best bet was to stop this unbridled growth of the alien mold throughout the Tomb Raiders’ territories.

We needed to act immediately and eradicate it, just to be safe.

So, AC Family, here was my plan.

I have found in all my experience in ant keeping that molds have a tendency to show up in moist areas where the air is still and not moving.

These moist, still-air conditions can be a result of an outworld that has poor ventilation.

Now, let’s have a look at our Tomb Raiders’ setup here.

Because of the Tomb Raiders’ tiny worker size of 1-2 mm, some of the worker ants are fully capable of fitting through the microholes in the perforated floors of our Hybrid Nests, our AC plugs, and our AC Test Tube Portals, which I normally use to give ants in ant farms air.

So, when putting together the Tomb Raiders’ territories a few weeks ago, I couldn’t use these items to provide ventilation.

Instead, I had to create small specific points of air entry at two locations using a micro screen mesh.

One at the top of the Garden of Anubis, as well as at the top of the Field of Aaru.

I also knew that anytime I opened one of the terrariums to water or feed the Tomb Raiders, ample fresh air would enter the setup.

Normally, these three points of airflow would be enough air to sustain the colony, but it seems to have also led to stagnant, humid air pooling inside the setup, which has invited these creepy-looking molds to flourish.

So, AC Family, our solution to our problem lay in this piece of technology—our new wind maker, i.e., a fish aquarium air pump.

We needed to create some wind to help save our ants.

You see, if the territories had some wind and increased air movement within the terrariums of our Tomb Raiders, the territories would become less favorable for these molds.

I have used air pumps in the past to successfully create microwinds in ant setups, and they have always been quite effective at not only improving ventilation but also at keeping mold levels down.

The ants, however, kind of hate the wind, especially in places they are nesting, but it is necessary sometimes to get fresh air pumping and moving around in a stuffy, humid ant space.

My plan was to install this air pump tube to this opening in the Valley of the Kings, where the entire setup starts, which would then pump fresh, dry air through the setup—not enough to cause an ant tempest, but enough to at least create a microwind, and theoretically keep all this alien mold growth under control.

My guess is once this air pump is installed, the colony, which is currently camped out in Nefertiti’s Tunnel, will be bothered and move somewhere else less windy.

We’ll just have to see.

Here we go, AC Family, are you ready?

It’s time to give our ants some centralized ventilation.

Removing the cotton and wrapping it around the air pump tube, and placing it into the hole opening of the Valley of the Kings.

Installed.

Let’s watch how our Tomb Raiders react!

The colony is instantly perturbed by the sudden winds.

They can feel it throughout Nefertiti’s Tunnel.

Surprisingly, ants spill out into the Valley of the Kings, perhaps because they felt like an intruder was causing this sudden disturbance, while others exited Nefertiti’s Tunnel and moved into the Garden of Anubis.

Overall, just as I thought they would, the ants seemed triggered by this sudden moving air.

It surely would affect the well-being of the brood, so they had to mobilize quickly.

Twelve hours later, as expected, the colony had completely deserted Nefertiti’s Tunnel to move camp, and were now nestled in the shadows of the Nubian Shelf.

Sorry, Tomb Raiders, it is for your own good.

I put them back in the dark to leave them in peace.

Fast forward to two weeks later, having this constant wind blowing through the lands, and as of a couple of days ago, this is what I saw.

The mold was dying and decreasing in size.

Yes, AC Family, our plan had worked!

I was so happy with the outcome!

I felt this was a positive triumph and step towards colony fruition for our Tomb Raiders.

But wanna see something else super interesting?

What surprised me further was this discovery.

It seems our new wind has carried moisture from inside the Valley of the Kings, as well as from within the Garden of Anubis, through the setup and to the Garden of Alexandria, where the moisture seems to all be collecting.

The terrarium walls were moist with condensed water.

It seemed the Garden of Alexandria had become a kind of swamp or bogland, which made it super favorable for some friends to flourish and breed: springtails and even snails!

How cool!

This excited me because it meant that the Garden of Alexandria had become the new breeding grounds and hub for the reproduction of springtails and snails, who naturally clean up our ants’ garbage, organic decaying waste, and molds.

These springtails and snails would then freely migrate to other areas of the Tomb Raiders’ setup to go on with their beneficial biological work in those areas.

The Garden of Alexandria, in other words, would be the Tomb Raiders’ new janitorial dispatch headquarters, which is super cool, right, AC Family?

So, it seems this potentially life-threatening alien mold, now under control, has, in the end, led us to improve the living space of our Tomb Raiders by making it a more biologically balanced system for all inhabitants.

I have discovered, based on our past experience particularly with our Golden Empire and even our Titans, that the key to a successful and fruitful ant farm is to establish a balanced biological system of organisms, not much more different than establishing a biological balance in an aquatic fish tank where all living things depend on one another in ideal proportions.

As the ant keeper, we have a very godlike responsibility and role to make the necessary critical decisions that ensure the thousands and perhaps millions of lives under our care are each provided with all the things they need to properly sustain themselves and find their balance within a contained setup.

Today, AC Family, I feel we did good, and our ants will be okay.

In fact, it seems straggler Pharaoh ants from the outside are still trying to find ways to get into our Tomb Raiders’ setup to join the rest of their family, and so I simply scoop up these interlopers with a cotton ball and throw them inside to reunite.

It was a happy ending for our Tomb Raiders… or at least so I thought, until a couple of nights ago, as I was filming the Tomb Raiders and their growing piles of brood.

Something about the appearance of the queens and even the workers didn’t seem right.

Their bodies seemed somehow bumpy.

So zooming in with my camera, I made a discovery that left me speechless.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Look, AC Family!

How could this be happening?

I looked around and realized that all of our Tomb Raiders were now dealing with a second plague.

Mites.

Tons and tons of parasitic mites.

Oh man!

AC Family, this is just unbelievable.

Now our Tomb Raiders have a mite problem, something our Golden Empire went through at this time exactly one year ago.

We must think of a solution to help our Tomb Raiders overcome these mites!

AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here if you would like to see more extended play footage of these new parasitic mites threatening our Tomb Raiders. I am sure a lot of you are as concerned as I am.

And before we proceed to the AC Question of the Week, I have an exciting announcement!

In case you haven’t heard yet, our annual Christmas Sale at AntsCanada.com is in full effect!

This year we have a great sale on our brand-new Hybrid Nest 2.0 and our All-You-Need Formica Hybrid Nest Gear Pack!

So, if you’ve always wanted to get into ant-keeping, I have left links in the description box to these sale items so you can pick one up for yourself or someone you love this Christmas.

We ship worldwide, but just a reminder—you must order before December 18th to get your order before Christmas, so go get it ASAP!

But if you’re not fussy about getting the item before Christmas Day, this Christmas sale, as usual, will continue until January 1st, 2018.

And we also have gift cards in case you would like to get your special loved one an ant setup but are not sure what they would want.

Keep ants with me and discover how amazing and mind-stimulating these creatures are in real life!

Alright, and now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week!

In last week’s video, we asked:

Why did we choose to make Golden Rock a dry setup?

Congratulations to Beatriz Pacheco, who correctly answered:

“We don’t want the setup to absorb moisture and rot.”

Congratulations, Beatriz, you just won a free eBook handbook from our shop!

In this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask:

Name one of the several ways in which ants keep mold and fungus levels low or under control within the nest.

Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win a free ant t-shirt from our shop!

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