ANTSTORE World of Ants

[bryguy97]

Hi. I want to keep ants ( Prenolepis imparis) this year in a regular thin formicarium. I want to use beach sand as a substrate. Will the ants be affected by the saltiness of the sand?? Please tell me if you know. Thanks!

[baumarkthammer]

Do you want them to nest in the sand?
Many ants like to lick salt, for example the sweet from your hand as you probably saw when you head an ant on your hands. I don´t know if ants can nist in such sand and if they can digg tunnels in there good, possible that the tunnels collaps to fast.

[bryguy97]

I would definitely keep the sand moist. Once i tried to get a colony to dig in Dry beach sand, and that didn't work at all( i was very inexperienced back then, and I really still am now...). Maybe i'll mix clay with the sand. But i'm glad ants like salt. Thanks for your help!

[baumarkthammer]

Not evry ant likes it and they sure won´t like it in their nest. They just sometimes like to lick it. They are small so they need just very few salt to live.

[bryguy97]

Do you think that sand from the beach of a pond would be better?

[baumarkthammer]

Defentily. It would make the tunnels more stabil i think, there is a big difference.

[bryguy97]

Great!

[JimmyVe]

Best would be if you mix up the sand with a little loam.