ANTSTORE World of Ants

[brightbluejacket]

I got 2 colonies of Pheidole pallidula a few months ago and there doing well but in the summer i'm thinking of tring to start a small eco-system.
I'v got a large tank which i'm going to put plants in and aphids to produce honey due for the ants. then im going to put a load of crickets with
food in and hope it works.
has anyone ever tried this before? or have any idea's? :?:

[Messorus]

I like ideas like´s this one, I had some very similiar too, but it was when I was 8 years old
Now I have enough knownledge that things like this won´t function

1. Aphids aren´t very good to be kept in home, I tasted it few times and I think other keepers did themeself too. Aphids don´t feed at your plants, and if yes- also- ants like´s Pheidole and honeywatter? Show me Myrmicinae beside of Myrmica rubra and others of Myrmica genus, which normal visites plants with aphids I will taste to keep aphids again this evening, because on our plants at home they was and now I have about 50 fundatrixies(somethink like ,,mother of mothers of Aphids" :D, or somethink like queen of the aphids.... first Aphid which will make aphid culture on a plant) and I will catch some and make set- up with a part of a plant in the test- tube......
2. P. pallidula in their mother habitat eats just died insects and things which ants find on a path, because their nests are usually between the path and some building.... They eat JUST died insects, I saw it.....

I´m, like an ant keeper, interested to primitve ants like´s Ponera, Hypoponera, Myrmecina..... I keep these ants and studing them.... One think which is very exciting on this keeping is, that these ants are living underground in humus soil..... Here are many other animals- springtails Collembola, white worms Enchytraea, Acarina animals and others... These small insects and invertebrates are living in soil, normal soil in your garden or in a forest! These animals are food for ants like´s Ponera. So Ponera is predating for these animals, somewhere on 25cms area in their own habitat! This is better choice to do! Your own microhabitate. For these you need some soil with these invertebrates, some old mixed wood, old leafs and humus.... Put it into Petriho bowl, add Ponera or other animals for watching and you have your small but function ecosysteme!
First think is to find and learn somethink about soil underground invertebrates....

This is all.... I prey you just good luck with your experiments..... But the choice of soil ecosysteme is easier and better

Bye and sorry from my bad english and metaphysics

[brightbluejacket]

Thanks for the advice and your english is ok

I was't to sure if Pheidole pallidula would be a good idea for this experiment so i might buy a new colony after christmas that is more suited. like Lasius flavus, or one of the Formica species. i read this a few weeks ago and stared some research on a small eco-system and thought i might try it.

Some farming ant species gather and store the aphid eggs in their nests over the winter. In the spring, the ants carry the newly-hatched aphids back to the plants. Some species of dairying ants (such as the European yellow meadow ant, Lasius flavus)[13] manage large "herds" of aphids that feed on roots of plants in the ant colony. Queens that are leaving to start a new colony take an aphid egg to found a new herd of underground aphids in the new colony. These farming ants protect the aphids by fighting off aphid predators

I was wondering if anyone new a good hunting ant species to?
Thanks

[brightbluejacket]

i found out that i can use springtails to feed my ants and they reproduce fast. so thats the live food sorted i think. thats the first part of the eco-system sorted. anyone have any other good idea's please?

[insanebe]

i remember reading about someone who put Millipedes in his arena and here is why,

Millipede Diet

Millipedes are detritivores (animals that consume decomposing organic material and in doing so contribute to decomposition and the recycling of nutrients). Most millipedes eat decaying leaves and other dead plant matter, moisturising the food with secretions and then scraping it in with the jaws.

A few species are known to feed on animal remains or funguses. Many species will also eat their own waste pellets. It is believed that they obtain nutrition from funguses growing inside the pellets rather than from the waste itself.

In other words good bye fungus :p

[tail__]

Actually quite a few animals can be kept in formicarium. I have also a centipede (Lithobius) as a nice addition in one of mine. It went here by accident in spring, probably in moss I put there, and it was only a few mm long then. Now it is almost 2 cm, it also probably eats springtails. It is a night creature and still lives in this moss, so I can see it only occasionally.

I also tried to introduce ant woodlice (Platyarthrus) into my Lasius niger colony, but it failed, ants ate all of them :\ Maybe because I took them from other, natural Lasius colonies. Or maybe I needed some trick. I'd like to know if anyone was able to keep them in nest.

[SteveUK28]

i must say i really like these ideas.. Im gonna be makin a large setup myself in the new year.. and i might think about going along these lines.. I'll keep you all updated.

[brightbluejacket]

yea i've been thinking about it for a while now. i just got a large basin 75cm long 30 cm wide and 30 cm high. i'm going to make it so that i can expand it. i want it to be as self-sufficient as posible.

what do the ant woodlice do?

[insanebe]

The animal is less than half a centimeter in length, strikingly white and absolutely blind. It spends its entire life in the nests of ants and is thus called the Ant Woodlouse. Apparently it eats the fungi the ants keep and rubbish left behind by the ants.

[insanebe]

if you want to put something in there try puting a Devil's Coach Horse (Staphylinus olens) in, they are voracious carnivoirs eating wood louse and snails and can deliver a very very painfull bite ( belive me i know), they grow to around 28 mm long and are large and aggressive.

[brightbluejacket]

where abouts did you get your Devil's Coach Horse ? looks nice, guessing it eats ants though

[insanebe]

you find in the garden they are very common, they will eat anything but ants are abit small would be like a t-rex eating a hamster

[damondeionno]

I agree that aphids probably won't work in the house. I had an aphid colony growing on some mint inside. The mint was growing in a filter I built for my aquarium so I couldn't use any pesticide. I observed the aphid colony regularly. After a while I noticed a few parasitic wasps around and within a couple of weeks - no more aphids. I think the problem with artificial ecosystems is that they are usually too small, so you get no predation... then complete predation and consequently population explosions and crashes. In nature this is spread out much more, so while it's happening in one place, other nearby areas are at different stages of the cycle which allows stability overall.

With regards to animals that live with ants, this is definitely possible. When I was younger, I collected colonies of common ants like lasius niger and m. ruginodis. I would often find woodlice and small fast moving beetles (too fast for the ants) in the colony and these always did well. I think you might find that both are capable of eating brood, particularly eggs and tiny larvae, so it depends on how you feel about that. They don't do it all the time, so you could still have a strong colony.

[Messorus]

On one photo is trophobiont, it´s common species(I know the Slovak name, but it´s quite common). I found this insect at species of Myrmica, Tetramorium caespitum, Lasius... quite common insect... I read about them that they are eating rubbish and old food in ant colonies...

[Skippy]

I am getting these white insects to natural formicariums with Myrmica/Manica species , it is really good formicarium cleaner , if is someone interested , I can at spring sell some ...