237 replies to this topic

[drtrmiller]

I suppose it can do both, but you should use a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter to check how much stuff like minerals, gases, and chemicals are in the water before and after it gets cloudy.  

 

It won't tell you what is in the water, but it will tell you whether the cloudiness is just your imagination.  Then you still have to figure out whether the solids are originating from the sponge, the plastic, the hydrostone, etcetera.  

 

All you can say definitely at this point is that adding hydrostone to the floor has a negligible, if any, impact on PH of the water in the reservoir.  You still have no indication as to what is causing the issue.  

 

Only a process of elimination will help solve the case of the missing hydrostone.

 

Edited by drtrmiller, January 21 2015 - 11:04 AM.

[dspdrew]

I suppose it can do both, but you should use a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter to check how much stuff like minerals, gases, and chemicals are in the water before and after it gets cloudy.  

 

It won't tell you what is in the water, but it will tell you whether the cloudiness is just your imagination.  Then you still have to figure out whether the solids are originating from the sponge, the plastic, the hydrostone, etcetera.  

 

All you can say definitely at this point is that adding hydrostone to the floor has a negligible, if any, impact on PH of the water in the reservoir.  You still have no indication as to what is causing the issue.  

 

Only a process of elimination will help solve the case of the missing hydrostone.

 

Haha. Hydrostone is white. But anyways, let me rephrase: The water IS slightly cloudy, and there ARE small particles of what looks like Hydrostone in it.

[dspdrew]

I am continuing this Hydrostone 'rosion (Is that better drtrmiller?  ) discussion over on my formicarium #8 thread (http://www.formicult...9-2015/?p=10984) since it's more relevant there.

[dspdrew]

I made a few test tiles of cement and Hydrostone to test out not only how much it dissolves, but also the amount of absorption I get out of them. Since this is more relevant to this formicarium, I posted it here.
 
The first one was a mixture of 3 parts Hydrostone, and 1 part cement. The second was 1 part Hydrostone, and 2 parts cement. The third was all cement, but with a chamois embedded in it the entire length.
 

 
 
The results were pretty weird. The one with 3 parts Hydrostone and 1 part cement absorbed water up about four inches, while the one with 2 parts cement and only 1 part Hydrostone got completely saturated. If that wasn't weird enough, after a couple days, the first hadn't changed much, other than a few of those gypsum crystals forming on it. The second one, with a way higher cement content, got all swelled up and cracked, and started to curve. When I touched it, I found I could actually crush it in my fingers as if it was made of mud.
 

 
 
It also had a lot of those gypsum crystals, and they were yellowish in color.
 

 
 
Even though the first one seemed to be working okay, as expected, because of the Hydrostone content, it started to dissolve where it was touching the water. This means I won't be bothering to use any mixture of Hydrostone and cement, or any Hydrostone at all for that matter.
 
The cement with the chamois inside it did exactly what I figured it would do; the entire thing was wet. This means by embedding a chamois or sponge inside cement, you can have total control over the moisture, allowing you to create whatever moisture gradient you want. As long as portland cement turns out to be safe, this now makes it the best material to use for nests in my opinion. Another thing I do still want to try though, is to pour nests using clay slip and have them fired.

[Chromerust]

I suppose it can do both, but you should use a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter to check how much stuff like minerals, gases, and chemicals are in the water before and after it gets cloudy.

Funny you mention this I have a Digital TDS meter I was going to give Drew

[Myrmicinae]

Dspdrew - Where did you manage to find the Ytong, if you don't mind me asking?  I'm sorry if I missed it in an earlier post.

 

Nice designs, by the way.

[dspdrew]

Thanks. I bought it from Mack Pidgen two years ago.

[Myrmicinae]

Thanks. I bought it from Mack Pidgen two years ago.

 

Ah, okay.  Thanks!  I forgot that he sold blocks of it.

[dspdrew]

For this particular nest design, cement or ceramics will both be way too fragile. Plastic is still the only thing that's going to be strong enough for this, so I decided to look into casting them out of resin. This would allow me to easily give them a nice rough texture, eliminating the slick surface problem with acrylic. For something this small, yet more than a half inch thick, casting it would be much cheaper than getting it laser cut. This of course would eliminate the ability to adjust the depth, but as cheap as it is, I could probably make two whole nests of different depths for the same price anyway. Not having to weld multiple plates of acrylic together will be much easier as well. Using resin also gives you the ability to make it look like almost any material you want.
 
Just to get a little practice at this, I made a silicone mold of my black and white prototype nest since that one didn't have a colony living in it at the moment. I sprayed it with contact adhesive and covered it in fine sand just to see if I could actually replicate this texture with my mold.
 

 

 
 
The mold came out alright for the small amount of silicone I used. Demolding was very difficult because of the sand, but I managed to do it without breaking anything.
 
After cleaning all the glue and sand off the silicone mold, I poured the resin. I mixed some mineral fillers into the resin to give it a stone look, and just for the heck of it, I added lots of very fine clay dirt, which I suspect had something to do with this not curing properly and leaving it semi-soft in some areas. I think I might have just added too much. Either way, it didn't really matter since this was just for practice.
 
You can see how realistic the texture came out. It looks so real, that if I didn't know, I would think there was actually sand glued to this thing.
 

 

 

[kellakk]

That looks very cool!  If this design works out well, I'd definitely buy it just based on how the texture looks!

[dean_k]

Yep, this one looks promising. There is no way the ants are chewing their way out of this one.

[drtrmiller]

That looks very cool!  If this design works out well, I'd definitely buy it just based on how the texture looks!

 

I'll take credit for the inspiration behind it :~P

[dspdrew]

 

That looks very cool!  If this design works out well, I'd definitely buy it just based on how the texture looks!

 

I'll take credit for the inspiration behind it :~P

 

 

Haha. But the gluing sand to it part was my idea! Seriously though, I do hope I don't have go through all that on the mother mold. I haven't looked at all the texture options yet for that website you sent me to the other day.

[drtrmiller]

I was making plastic sand a year ago, sonny boy.

Edited by drtrmiller, February 6 2015 - 10:45 AM.

[dspdrew]

Interesting. What happened with these ideas?

[Foogoo]

I was making plastic sand a year ago, sonny boy.

[drtrmiller]

I must admit, when I helped Drew conceptualize this design back in October, I didn't realize it would look this good.  Drew has a very good eye for symmetry, balance, and use of space.

 

I customized his rendition of my design of his design, eliminated the hard edges and angles, and then printed this part:

 

Edited by drtrmiller, March 20 2015 - 11:53 AM.

[Mercutia]

Miller, I like that one. Send me the file? =D

[Crystals]

Drew, how durable was that silicone mold?

Also, did you make your own silicone mold mix, or buy one?

[dspdrew]

Yeah, I messed with the idea of rounding the corners, and came up with almost the same thing, but I didn't like it. Again, I'm not trying to replicate a natural nest, and doing so actually wastes space.