This spring I wanted to embark on a fun ant-related experiment, and I thought it may be even more fun if i let you guys learn with me, and even weigh in on my decisions.
So the project itself is a little ambitious: Since I think last summer I've had this huge 4x4x1.5 ish glass lizard case, and I recently thought up a cool thing i could do with it. If I tip it on it's side, it becomes an almost sealed aquarium looking thing with sliding doors on the top, and with easy adjustments it could become a suitable vessel for a quite voluminous terrarium. But if that's not exciting enough, I also know that the more space you have, the larger the biosphere you can sustain, so maybe it would be possible to build a self-sustaining terrarium with a LIVING ant colony inside it's just 24 cubic feet of land? I know it's no small task, for example air-purity, soil purity, humidity, ant diet, biosphere, lighting, and temperature are all big challenges that I can come up with off the top of my head, but maybe with your help we can work towards a proven model that you can all build.
So I get to build a cool ant terrarium, and you guys get to weigh in and learn how to make your own without any of the trial and error.
Unfortunately, other than maybe making some updates when I fix the glass case, most activity will be low as I live in Ontario and it's still a frozen abyss up here for like, a month.
-We can get started on all the terrarium stuff, like researching ant-food plants and other biology, collecting and procuring them, and other necessary design information.
-Then we actually assemble the huge terrarium using all the components and a ton of aesthetic consideration.
-After that I'll let it grow (but not seal it off) and get a small founding colony. I could track down queens and raise them, or I could buy one from the GAN.
-Once everything is ready I'll plant the ant colony into my terrarium and seal it off (I haven't decided yet just how sealed I want it)
-Finally, we observe. Ant health will be monitored, and we'll see how the small, limited eco-system handles a growing ant population.
So leave a comment, let me know if you guys would like to see this come to life and give me tips as to how I should conduct this, ie. better spot in the forum? YouTube?
Happy Anting!
