ANTSTORE World of Ants

[themann]

Hi guys.

I am looking into building a farm for Oecophylla smaragdina.

As i want what i best and most natural for the ants, i have a few questions.

My first idea for a setup looks like this:

An open aquarium (50cmx40cmx100cm) with two or three island and water around the islands, to prevent escape.
A tree on one of the island, maybe one on each side of the aquarium, and an arena in the middle.

What do you think about that?
Is the idea with the islands and water a good idea? Or would it be better to build a closed tank, and then maybe not put water in?
Something like this:

Also, I'm thinking of using fake ficus plant(s) for the tree.
Are there any problems with that?
I want to use plastic, so i don't have to keep the ficus tree, and so that i can cut the plastic tree to fit nicely in the aqarium, but it is important, that the ants will actually nest in it.
Are the any minimum requirements for the height of the tree?
I was thinking about 60 cm tall. Is that sufficient?

What about lighting? Do these fellows need special kind of lighting and temperature. I live in Denmark.
If they need special light and air humidity, it is probably best to go with the closed tank?

What do you think, guys?
Am I on the right track?

Any comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Thank you!

Best regards
Hjalte

[baumarkthammer]

The colonies of Oecophylla I saw in the past were very big.
They had build a nest that gigantic that they had waved in the whole tree and waved at the glas.
If i was you i would just keep them on a tree (60cm or more should be ok) in a closed tank.
Workers barley ever go on the ground, if they can they keep on the tree and eat and live there so one small island would be enough.
Also it mostly makes no difference if the tree is real or from plastic, mostly real trees are full of chemicals that easily kill a colony of Oecophylla within a very short time, what is a problem that plastic trees don´t have.

[themann]

Hey baumarkthammer.

Thanks for your reply.

Is correctly understood, that you would recomend keeping them in the closed tank, like the one on the second drawing?

I would prefer going with the model in the first picture, because the the tree can be bigger and i don't have to go through the work of building the closed tank. (I have the big 50cmx40cmx100cm already.)

However, I want what is best for the ants.
If i can keep the ants from escaping the open tank, with oil or water around the islands, the only problem I see is with keeping high air humidity and temperature.
Will they be fine in "normal" living room humidity/temperature, and then spraying them a couple of times a day with water, or do they require higher?