938 replies to this topic

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

I recently bought these, do you guys have ideas for what I could make with them?

Use it for cryptic species! I use it for them, or you could do the same thing that GOCAMPONOTUS suggested but instead of drilling a hole, you can make a small ditch that dips under one of the sides of the Petri dish as an enterance

[Artimusclydeperez]

Look at the new nest I made for my psueomyrmex Apache colony cuz they out grew there current !
The old one was one wall the new one is 4 walls and a bottom that they can use to quickly get to any wall.

This is sooo easy to make for any one with tree dwelling ants that don’t need nest hydration. It’s balsa wood $15 on Amazon gets u a ton. A clear acrylic cube $24 on amazon gets u 20+ depending on size
And I used a dremel but u can literally use a knife to carve the nest out if u don't have one try it out!

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[ANTdrew]

I built this all in one formicarium for my quickly growing Pheidole pilifera colony. I used an old mini-helmet display case from Hobby Lobby as the mold and formed the chambers using damp sand. This was my first time using Ultracal 30. It expands much less Hobby Lobby Perfect Cast, but it took *way* longer to set. I had to break the mold container to get the nest out, but I was able to slide it into a new container.

Edited by ANTdrew, January 12 2025 - 4:57 PM.

[Artimusclydeperez]

That looks really nice. And looks to have a ton of space! I really like the 3 tiny entrances you made

[ANTdrew]

Thank you! I just drilled with a tiny bit since these are small ants. I wanted to make little fake ant hills out of plaster, but it didn’t work out nicely.

[Artimusclydeperez]

I built this all in one formicarium for my quickly growing Pheidole pilifera colony. I used an old mini-helmet display case from Hobby Lobby as the mold and formed the chambers using damp sand. This was my first time using Ultracal 30. It expands much less Hobby Lobby Perfect Cast, but it took *way* longer to set. I had to break the mold container to get the nest out, but I was able to slide it into a new container.

That came out so nice! Looks like there is a ton of room and I really like how the entrance holes look it’s just pleasing to look at haha

[Djanello]

I'm a bit early preparing for my first nuptial flight season and would love some feedback on my test tube racks setup.

 

I am planning to catch a lot of queens, keep some myself but also share succesful starting colonies via the antscanada GAN project or via other websites if possible.

 

The racks can hold 88 test tubes each. I will fill them completely with glass Teqler 16x150mm testtubes with collars like those that are currently fully inserted on the image. Cotton filling should block out the light for both filled and empty testtubes from the front. 

 

I am hoping to monitor and enjoy the queen ants without disturbing them too much.

 

Will this likely work? Did I miss anything or is there anything that could be improved? Can I use these racks without putting them away in a dark place or will the queens fail to develop when I put these racks out in the open? I'm from northwestern europe and expecting to find mostly lasius niger and hopefully lasius flavus while myrmica rubra would be icing on the cake for my first season.

 

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

 

[AntsGodzilla]

This will likely work, and ants can't see red light so you won't need to put it away. Just make sure you don't bump or disturb them too much. 

Edited by AntsGodzilla, March 5 2025 - 3:59 PM.

[rptraut]

Hello Djanello;

Even though I use a red filter for my Lasius colonies, they still seem to be affected by light. Yours may still need a blackout cover to keep the queens calm.
RPT

[AntBoi3030]

Made this founding nest for small colonies. It's pretty tiny. I made sure to make the water tower large so I don't have to fill it up too much. Not the prettiest, but I think it will allow for good viewing of a colony! The orange coloration is from the clay I used to mold it.

Edited by AntBoi3030, March 5 2025 - 7:52 PM.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I'm a bit early preparing for my first nuptial flight season and would love some feedback on my test tube racks setup.

 

I am planning to catch a lot of queens, keep some myself but also share succesful starting colonies via the antscanada GAN project or via other websites if possible.

 

The racks can hold 88 test tubes each. I will fill them completely with glass Teqler 16x150mm testtubes with collars like those that are currently fully inserted on the image. Cotton filling should block out the light for both filled and empty testtubes from the front. 

 

I am hoping to monitor and enjoy the queen ants without disturbing them too much.

 

Will this likely work? Did I miss anything or is there anything that could be improved? Can I use these racks without putting them away in a dark place or will the queens fail to develop when I put these racks out in the open? I'm from northwestern europe and expecting to find mostly lasius niger and hopefully lasius flavus while myrmica rubra would be icing on the cake for my first season.

 

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

 

The only thing i'd point out is, those looks like large "egg" baskets to me.
I'd not change it up now, but for next time i would consider dividing that up into 4-6 smaller boxes rather than two larger ones.

All queens(the eggs in my analogy) will be josteled and disturbed, anytime the box they are in is distrurbed enough to stress them.
More smaller boxes with fewer queens each, would spread that out a bit better.

Sometimes it is not an "All eggs in one" issue but that a single basket may be a large enough number of "eggs" to loose at once, it still really sucks.


 

[ANTdrew]

Draping a towel over the rack will be enough darkness. You can gently lift it off any time you want to check on them without any queens barely noticing. Keep in mind, though, that there isn’t anything interesting to observe during the founding stage other than a queen huddled over some tiny white things. It’s best to just leave them alone as much as possible and enjoy the observing part once they have workers and actually do stuff.

[Djanello]

Thx for the feedback! 

 

The racks will be kept inside a closet, so they will be mostly dark anyways. I will mostly only disturb them for monitoring, food, water etc. The racks being too big and smaller racks causing less disturbance is a good remark that might be very true. If it seems that the ants will be disturbed too much, I might reduce the rack size. If it doesn't, I'll enjoy watching many queen ants caring for their first broods.

 

I love the part where the queens are raising their first workers. I'm pretty sure it will be interesting for me. Being able to provide others with colonies that are past their first vulnerable period is also something that I would probably enjoy a lot. I'm mostly worried about too many colonies outgrowing their test tube and having to care for them with nests etc. which might require quite more time, but I'll have to get a feeling on how much work it'll require.

 

@rptraut: The debate on wether red light works or not is a thing I'm following very carefully.

 

I am not surprised that lasius species may still be restless. At least the red acrylic dims the light somewhat. It also makes it easier to monitor when I open up the closet without disturbing them too much. If it doesn't work well enough, I'll probably build a thin wooden cover that I can just put over the racks. If it works at first in full darkness, I might move on to putting one of the racks out in the open with just a few filled testtubes to see what happens.

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

I might move on to putting one of the racks out in the open with just a few filled test tubes to see what happens.

I do that with all of my founding queens, They get used to being constantly exposed to light and end up not caring that their nest is completely open and not dark, If you want to see your ants without disturbing them, don’t turn to red light film because it is a waste of money and some ants can see red light, and you can just let your ants acclimate to the light. One example is my Formica colony, it helps to keep them calm and stops them from spazzing out when I check on them, now they only get upset whenever there is too much vibration.

[AntBoi3030]

Here’s a mini tackle box formicarium!

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[ANTdrew]

Old school, but with modern hydration. Ants will love that.

[Artimusclydeperez]

Check out my weekend projects I did one is a bark scorpion display tank it came out really nice
The second is an hang on wall nest for one of my Camponotus by color colonies

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[OwlThatLikesAnts]

They look great! Do you think that adding vegetation to the scorpion tank would liven it up?

[Artimusclydeperez]

They look great! Do you think that adding vegetation to the scorpion tank would liven it up?

I was considering this but I decided against it for the most part as it’s supposed to display them well and add g plants they would surely opt to hide in or behind them