5 replies to this topic

[alwayslearning]

Hi. I hope you are well.

As you can guess, I'm a newbie

 

I have 3 colonies of ants: 

1. Camponotus fragilis
2. Novomessor
3. Honeypots 

Each colony has its own nest and outworld (attaching images of both)

Currently, in the outworlds, I have the towers for water, nectar, plates for worm-soup, sand and some small rocks. However, particularly for the Camponotus fragilis, which are always in the outside world (and they never go to the nest), I was thinking about adding some fake plants to provide places to hide and relax. 

I found in Amazon this https://www.amazon.c...n/dp/B0002AR5DI (I'm attaching it as an example) and I thought about buying different plastic plants for terrariums, cut them in small pieces (to make them fit in my outworld) and use them.

 

The question: Could this materials affects my colonies in a harmful way? Could the ants try to eat them? 

 

Remember, I'm totally new and I don't want to hurt the colonies. I would sterilize the things with UV light before adding it to the outworlds.

 

I would appreciate advice.

Thanks.  

 

 

 

 

Attached Images

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Edited by alwayslearning, November 24 2020 - 12:59 PM.

[Ants_Dakota]

i believe it would be fine for camponotus. it is other species that are the most harmful to fake plants

[ANTdrew]

It won’t harm them in any way. The only downside if you put too much decorations would be that it is harder to clean. Once a colony gets huge, it’s basically impossible to clean anyway, so just put what you like.

[MinigunL5]

How are you going to put the plants in?

[OhNoNotAgain]

Sorry to come to this late, but I will throw in here that my Veromessor pergandei actually started ripping the leaves off their plastic plants.

I'm told they do this to real plants, too, but it's just a note that overcrowded harvester ants may actually try. I would only use plastic plants that are hard to dismember.

[Swirlysnowflake]

Just curious, where are these nests from? They look cool.