Hi all. Thanks to help from many, I have a colony on the way and am busy building a home for them. One thing I am struggling most with is a water/moisture source/balance. I am intending to build a similar setup to the one Ants SA posted recently (video one), but I really dislike drilling a hole in the container, so I am trying to find an alternative.
Ideally I would like to have a mini lake up top with a tunnel going down, close to my ant tunnels for moisture transference, but I am unsure if the plaster will survive being constantly wet, or if the water source needs capillary action (visible through the container) in order to work and spread to the nest, or if a lake could just drain entirely and drown the ants. Alternately I thought it might be pretty cool to have a water reservoir at the bottle of the container and have bit of plaster reaching down to it to draw water up (video two), but again this could have the same problems as the previous idea (constantly wet plaster falling apart and not enough/too much water for the colony).
Lastly, if nothing else will work, I'm thinking of having a separate chamber with an ant proof hole at the top that I top up with water as needed (though I'll have to try find that balance). Any comments, suggestions, or other input would be greatly appreciated.
