912 replies to this topic

[steelplant]

 

 

Would be interested to hear whether you think this sort of design is worth pursuing.

 

I made the ant hill with vermiculite concrete (water:cement:vermiculite 1.5 : 1 : 2 by volume). After setting for 24 hours I took the ant hill out of the jar and misted it several times a day for a week to help it cure. I then carved out the cave with a screwdriver and made  a little nest hole leading to the cave from the outworld half of the jar. Outworld is gravel and sand.

 

Hydration is just a pipette squirt in the nest hole. Will probably put some substrate in the cave, most likely a coir/sand mix, so the ants can customise it and block the hole if they want to. I'm testing it to make sure it hydrates correctly before putting a queen in. A Tar Heel Ants style water tower would probably work better. 

 

I'll also cover the cave front in red acetate or something.

 

 

[Jimmydave937911]

My first few attempts at AAC formicarium...

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[RushmoreAnts]

@steelplant, your looks very naturalistic. I love it.

@Jimmydave937911, your looks very professional. They would sell.

[ANTdrew]

@steelplant, your looks very naturalistic. I love it.

@Jimmydave937911, your looks very professional. They would sell.

I second both of these statements.

[Kaelwizard]

@steelplant, your looks very naturalistic. I love it.

@Jimmydave937911, your looks very professional. They would sell.

I second both of these statements.

And I third those statements.

Edited by Kaelwizard, June 1 2020 - 10:28 AM.

[steelplant]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I made a couple of cubes, one with a vermcrete nest (will plug up hydration port and also silicone the nest onto the box), one natural. I love looking for tiny (non-porous) stones with holes in the top that make perfect ant feeders.

 

Found some unwinged queens running over block paving yesterday but they were way too quick for me. Lots of elates peeping out of nest holes then going back in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ANTdrew]

Looks great! Ants will probably move into the sea shells, though. This happened to my brother, and he could never get them to move out.

Edited by ANTdrew, June 16 2020 - 3:11 AM.

[steelplant]

Looks great! Ants will probably move into the sea shells, though. This happened to my brother, and he could never get them to move out.

 

Cheers ANTdrew. Yes I was thinking when I put them in the shells might make a nice spot for pupae. It didn't occur to me they might all move in though lol. I guess I wouldn't mind too much. 

 

Finally got to the sea at the weekend after months of lockdown and it was great beachcombing for formicarium ornaments and accessories. 

[rbaezam]

An now the final version with less space around the glass. The edges are also sanded and the nest comes with a cover made out of card board:

 

 

 

 

A Tetramorium sp. (caespitum/impurum-complex) already moved into one of the nests:

 

 

 

I have some blocks of ytong and I'd love to do something like this, but I've always wonder how can I do the inset in the block to put the glass. Can you give me some advice about how to do it? Thanks!

[to_be_announced]

Man, so many people here make such nice formicariums.

[FSTP]

Here is a new larger foraging enclosure I made for my Myrmecocystus mexicanus colony a few weeks back. IMO most out worlds and foraging spaces are way to small even for a small colony. So really I only use the small outworld included with THA formicarums in the very beginning of a colony.

 

 

ou can see the new out world in this video. Also you can see some of it on my instagram page as well.

 

 

 

If there is interest I can make a video showing how I made it since I plan on making another one soon.

Edited by FSTP, July 8 2020 - 12:49 PM.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

It's not fully done but that's my ant terrarium I'm working on.
It's gonna house messor barbarus and I made all of that from scratch.

You can't see it too well now but there's a cave in front that I gonna light up with LEDs and put in some sort of monster or demon looking thing that holds a great vine growing from the cave all the way up to the tree and the vine grows hangmans nooses down the tree that I already put up to see what it'll look like.

Its not the typical setup but I like making those and they work pretty well.
Only made one before this one

[TechAnt]

Awesome! But I am not sure about those ropes on the the tree.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

Awesome! But I am not sure about those ropes on the the tree.

Thank you
What do you not like how it looks or what it represents?
My favorite horror movie is sinister and there's a hanging tree sort of controlled by a demon type thing so it's basically making the cave I'll make the hiding spot for the monster.

That's not the finished setup tho. I'll dress it all up a little more and make the ropes look like vines like they grow from inside the cave making it mysterious looking

[TechAnt]

 

Awesome! But I am not sure about those ropes on the the tree.

Thank you
What do you not like how it looks or what it represents?
My favorite horror movie is sinister and there's a hanging tree sort of controlled by a demon type thing so it's basically making the cave I'll make the hiding spot for the monster.

That's not the finished setup tho. I'll dress it all up a little more and make the ropes look like vines like they grow from inside the cave making it mysterious looking

Actually, I don't like either, no offense. It makes me a little uncomfortable, while asthetically I prefer the tree, it can't really pull off extra stuff unless it really fits in. Its just my opinion though. But I see what you mean.

Edited by TechAnt, July 10 2020 - 6:43 PM.

[AntaholicAnonymous]

It looks a little out of place at the moment I'm working on how to implement it preperly right now so that it looks more like it belongs.

Guess it also strongly depends on what you like in general. Many like the natural oasis look. I like the ants to look intimidating in this setup snatching crickets from the ropes foraging in the dessert cliff and hopefully building in the tower where the tree is on walking up and down the spiral to their hunting grounds.

Messor make long trails and can't go too steep elevations with seeds. They also like to dig deep in sand so I came up with the tower and spiral design. The tower is 50 cm deep and holds about 40 kilos of sand

[TechAnt]

Ah, cool.

[mannac]

I made a few founding formicariums using those boxbox containers, hydrostone, pool filter sand, and 25 micron mesh. Next time I'll go a little shallower with the hydrostone because it expanded enough to make the lid fit noticeably looser. And I need to pay more attention to CA glue off-gassing because it discolored the lids a bit.

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[Wegmier]

Some Ytong nests I've made

[Richard]