ANTSTORE World of Ants

[maxfly]

Sorry for bad english I try my best....

The project realized after some experiment and some experience.

First of all I finished today a prototype and it works properly, just some aesthetic adjustment but the mechanism works fine.

For photos you must wait two weeks, but u can see a simpler draw in attachment.

The concept.

- A farm for species that need sand-loam nest, and that chew Y-tong ( Pheidole, messors, tetramorium....)
- A farm, with nest+forage area in same basin
- A farm realizable in any size of basin, from mini to gigant
- A farm with practical and functional innovated humidification nest system(one area moist one area dry)


Added value.

- Ytong qualities bypassing Ytong defects
- Big Tank Water reservoir outside the basin
- A fresh water fountain( without any type of maintenance, like cotton, sponge etc etc...) inside the habitat.

Material:

1 Basin
1 Piece of Y-tong(in order of your basin dimension)
Some acquarium sand
Some Mix sand-loam
1 plastic bottle
Some iron fence
A piece of glass plastic tube(diameter in order of your basin hole)
Some silicon

Kit:

1 Drill or dreamel

Instruction:

Very simple ....modelize the ytong in order of basin dimension, important is that to leave some space between ytong and basin glass wall.(Tips you can create a chambers just leaving some ytong, this could be useful when young colony leave the testtube).

Drill the Y-tong in a T-tunnel, fill the T-tunnel with acquarium sand, fix the iron fence to the top for the fountain and to the bottom for moisture source.

Now put the acquarium sand in order to create a floor on all bottom basin glass, now put the ytong.

Insert the tube trough the basin drill and inside the y-tong tunnel

Now attach the bottle

Fill the space between the Y-tong and the basin with sand-loam, now put water in the bottle very slowly...regulate... the end.


question, feedback, makes your own etc etc...are welcome...

[JimmyVe]

Not a bad idea, only have one point to add. Its a nice setup for ants that can dig through ytong but i think the way you keep the farm moist could cause problems. If the ants dig through it the water will go all over the nest. Maybe you can use tubes to keep the nest moist. (or maybe that was your idea already. )

[maxfly]

Good point, actually there isnt a tubes inside the tunnel, but is fill of granulate big acquarium sand, that ants dig the y-tong is a possibility, but if u see the bird eye draw, you can see that the nest have 4 sides of soil, this would be induce in optimist way the ants to dig in, because would be prefer a soft and moist soil instead relative hard and not very moist ytong(in this case the soil will absorb the 90% of water)

The problem in my opinion will borns when the colony goes big, but is depend also to your basin start dimension, anyway you can connect another same nest basin, and wish ants expand the nest in it

Other solution is to use another builder material, not y-tong, that any ants cant dig.

But actually I dont know a valid alternative.


cheers

[JimmyVe]

Me nether. Still i wouldn't take the risk, ants (if they can) dig where ever you don't want them to dig.