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[Antfishy]

Hellloooo, I'm Antfishy. Now that I know how to keep ants, I've been thinking about my ants' housing. At first, I was thinking cylinder for the 360 view of the tunnels, but as my agricultural professor always said: "think outside the sandbox." So, I got to thinking.. and thinking.. and thought a little more. WHY CAN'T FISH AND ANTS BE FRIENDS? I've always had an interest in keeping ants, and always been partial to my fishes. I want to build a functional fish tank for a Chinese fighting fish [betta], and my to-be-discovered-colony.

 

I know what I plan on buying to convert: trio betta tank. Whichever compartment that has the filter will obviously be for the fish, and the other two will be for the ants; a nest/outer world. I'm just at a loss as to how I actually convert the tank into what I'd like... any ideas as to how would be awesome!

Edited by Antfishy, January 9 2018 - 10:54 AM.

[Connectimyrmex]

First of all, you would need a large colony for that kind of setup. Since you are new, I'd worry about starting a colony first. Wild-caught colonies often carry mites and mold and get stressed very easily, so starting a colony from a single queen should be your plan of action. 

Second, many species of ants could seriously injure a betta. If you keep something like Solenopsis or Myrmica (which also are escape artists) and one worker falls into the fish's aquarium, your fish might swallow it and get stung in its gut (and ant venoms are more dangerous to smaller animals).

You could use that aquarium, but making a formicarium in the trio would be difficult. Instead, I would use those two aquariums as outworlds for test tube nests or small, premade formicariums. Of course, you would need some sort of barrier (fluon, baby powder, etc) or a well-ventilated lid to keep colonies from escaping. Plus you would need to make sure that your betta would be okay with seeing tiny snack-sized insects running next to it right behind transparent barriers