37 replies to this topic

[dean_k]

The reason for a week wait is probably because he is completely out of stock. He has once e-mailed me a long explanation of what has been going on.

 

Basically to sum it up, he got more orders than he expected and totally ran out of stock which was why recent orders became delayed. To ship your replacement, it needs to be manufactured which seems to take a week for a new batch to arrive, assembled, and become ready to be shipped.

[AntsNY]

It takes a long time to print the nests, understandable with a large order volume.

[BugFinder]

He initially told me I had to wait a week before he shipped the replacement, I asked him if there is any way to ship it sooner. I am waiting on his response.

 

I edited my previous post in case my wording was confusing. 

 

Don't hold your breath bud.  I'm still waiting for the return shipping invoice from pay-pal he said I'd get.

[dspdrew]

I'll tell you guys this much. He's definitely very busy right now doing something, probably multiple things, because I'm not getting any replies from him. Just letting everyone know this delay is probably a temporary thing.

 

Edit: He just replied, and yes he is swamped, mainly with Hybrid nest sales.

Edited by dspdrew, June 20 2015 - 7:50 AM.

[dean_k]

He is in Toronto right now and is getting ready for host a concert.

[Tspivey16]

He doesn't have employees to field customer service or is he the only employee?

[BugFinder]

It seems he has set his priorities.  I'm glad I now know what they are.

[dspdrew]

I'm sure his fans would be saying the same thing if he was at home building formicariums.

[Ants4fun]

I'm sure that he doesn't need the antsCanada business anyways. He most likely could get by fine without it. I'm sure his priorities are more towards his main job and career.

[BugFinder]

Which screws his customers of his ant business.

[dspdrew]

I wouldn't say it screws them; it just adds to the price of his formicariums. Some will take it; some will leave it.

[Pulliamj]

Diplomatic I havnt ordered a formicarium yet. I really need several but it doesn't seem that there is a great solution to my need yet.

[Ants4fun]

$50 for a formicarium isn't bad though...

Edited by Ants4fun, June 20 2015 - 1:34 PM.

[AntsNY]

He doesn't have employees to field customer service or is he the only employee?

 

He has a USA location making nests.

 

Mine arrived from Utah so insanely defective it is a small wonder how it got fully assembled and went out the door..

 

Must be a new employee

[BugFinder]

It completely screws over his customers when he doesnt' fulfill orders placed, or when he's slow to fulfill them, or when he doesn't send out invoices he has promised to send.

[AntsNY]

Mikey made good with me tonight.

 

All my issues were promised to be taken care of.

 

He wrote me a very nice email and told me to keep my defective hybrid and he will ship me a new one personally inspected right away.

 

I am glad we could resolve this like compassionate human beings.

 

I know he is a super busy guy, I think going directly to him with your problem like I did is a better solution than complaining in a forum.

 

Instead of posting my video of the defective nest here I uploaded it unlisted and sent it directly to him.

 

He thanked me tonight saying the video review really helped them detect and fix some problems.

 

He seemed to "ignore" my emails also for days.. but he did get back finally.

 

I am sure he just did not have the time with his insane life, half the time I talk to him he is on a plane somewhere.

[BugFinder]

I'm glad to hear he contacted you, I hope he takes good care of you.

[AntsCanada]

Here is my initial review on it.

=====================================================

 

Today, my Ants Canada Hybrid nest small Formica sp has arrived.

 

 

Above is what you will receive when you order it from them.

 

 

 

The white layers of cotton goes into the lower part of the nest where it will be kept moist. You can add water in either of the side.

 

 

 

 

Once you open its lid, you see a fitting square piece of glass that is about 0.5cm in thickness. The edges aren't smoothed for likely cost-saving measure which I can certainly understand. But the edges are really, really, sharp. You can very easily cut your skin.
I believe AntsCanada claims to ship a fair amount of these to children. If so, these sharp edges need to be smoothed out.

 

 

 

The nest is 3D printer cut and supposedly optimized for formica species.

 

 

 

It has a hole on each side where you may add tubes to connect it to outworld or to a test tube to transfer a colony over. For Formica species, this small nest should be enough for a long time. I can see hundreds of ants living cozily inside.

 

 

 

The bottom has a mesh glued. From the way I feel it, I believe it's aquarium silicone sealant and I believe the mesh is steel or at least metal.

 

 

 

There aren't much for me to say about this since I haven't actually used it yet. However, I would like to point out that the sharp edges of the glass is very alarming. Granted, I am not going to be touching it very often. In fact, I don't see touching the glass ever once I get a colony settled in. But it is still very possible to get skin cuts from its sharp edges.

Furthermore, not having an outworld included is a thumb down in my opinion. AntsCanada claims it's easier for us to make our own outworlds and that may be true to some. For me though, I'd like to have a formicarium that has its outworld built together. My desire for this is simple. I want my setups to look simplier, thus making the whole setup easier to manage.

When you have only a colony or two, having a separated outworld may not be a big deal. But when you have a lot of colonies, you want your setup to be simple and easier to relocate at will.

Below is my current setup. And one colony is in hibernation.

 

 

I do not certainly want to have separated outworlds for each of them. It'd create a huge mess . Not only that it will create a maintenance nightmare. Additionally, tube outworld setups are also more accident prone. What if I accidentally knock a tube out? What if a tube gets loose and ants plan their greatest escape?

 

 

I have reviews on different formicariums @ http://antjournals.c...icarium-reviews

 

Thanks, Drew for bringing this to my attention.

 

Thanks for the review, Dean!

 

I wanted to explain a few things about the outworld.

 

First, ants need a large and spacious outworld, larger than most people think. A mature colony needs the open space to forage, some species more than others. The reason we stopped shipping outworlds was because it became difficult to ship sufficiently large outworlds without damage, it was super expensive, and just all around impractical. We are trying to work around this and come up with a way to ship large outworlds within a decent shipping cost and to minimize or eliminate chances of damage upon arrival, but until then we created this video because making one is much easier: 

 

 

You will find that small outworlds available from other vendors will prove to be too small. The outworlds that come with our Omni Nests are also temporary outworlds to be used until the colony grows larger. In my videos you can see that I completely remove the Omni Nest outworld and use a critter crawler (or a network of them) as their outworld.

 

What you will find if you try using an outworld that is not big enough is your colony will move into the outworld and treat it like a giant room. Anyone who has owned a mature ant colony knows what I am talking about. The air in a small outworld (as seen in some of those photos) is still and stagnant, and that is the perfect environment for ants to deem the space as a giant ant room and move in accordingly. It is why outworlds do well when they are large and are with an open top. The moving air in and out of the outworld keeps it "outworld" real estate, and not "nest" real estate. In Europe, it is even customary to outfit electrical rotary fans at the top of outworlds to keep the air moving in the outworld so that the ants do not move into it, and see the outworld as the outside of their nest.

 

Finally, small outworlds like those shown in the pic are good for starting colonies but when the colonies reach maturity they become impossible to clean properly. Again, if you've had a mature colony you know what I am talking about.

 

Anyway, I will see what we can do about the glass. We chose to have the glass loose because it is easier to clean and as mentioned it is easy to glue into place. We have placed a warning label in the packages that warn people of the sharp glass. I am not sure if you saw that or if it may have been excluded from your package for whatever reason.

 

Hope this explains a few things.

 

Mikey

Edited by AntsCanada, June 24 2015 - 2:27 PM.