ANTSTORE World of Ants

[marvinH]

I have the glass L - ant display 40x3x30 cm.
On the bottum 3cm granulate. On top of that sand loam mixture white 1000g (white to clearly see the ant's).
A vertical pipe on the left side, cutton on both ends from the bottom of the ant display to the top.
I inserted water into the pipe and the granulate worked perfect, the water was displaced evenly over the bottum of the display.
After inserting around 100ml of water, the saturation level was around 30%.
Than I stoped, I did not want to much water in the display.
Overnight the level raised to 60%.
There is still a layer dry sand left.
Do I need to put in water until the saturation is on top? Or do you need to wait several days first?
How high sould the water level be in the pipe? To the top of the sand, isn't that to much water?
And sould the water on the bottum always be 100% wet?

[jbc]

Welcome marvin, to our community!

I had an ant-farm (ant display) too, but it wasn't successful.

I would suggest that you keep 100% at the bottom, because you have a high ant-farm. And wait some days, if it isn't humid at the top you can moisture it. I assume you are new at ant keeping. Not everything has to be 100% humid some ants need to have 50%, 80%, 30% and so on. What ant species will you keep?

For Lasius niger I would keep the top at 30% and bottom depends from top. If you keep the bottom 100% humid than the ants can drink.

OK read it and answer.

[marvinH]

Hi, thanks for your advice.

I'am keeping the Lasius niger.
They are now in a cheap plastic ant farm for about 6 months. But they stil did not moved form the tube to the ant farm itself.
I think the humidity was not good. I did not had a watering pipe like in this glass ant farm.
And the sand in the plastic ant farm was mixed light and dark collors, almost imposible to see the ants that way. That's why I'am using white sand now, much better.
I wil put the tube into the arena and hopefully they will move eventually. (still only one queen and around 10 ant's).

It's still hard to see how humid it all is.
Only thing I can see is the saturation line (now at 75% from the bottom).
And I can see if there is water at the bottom of the vertical watering pipe.
If I only need to make sure there is watter at the bottom, it's easy. I won't fill the pipe than, only for 1cm.
But I'am not sure thats enough.
If I keep filling the pipe to the surface level, I think it's to much water.

I hope I'am not going to get mold.
There is no ventilation mesh on the glass display. Do I need to take the top of every day, or will the ant farm dry out that way?
Why did your ant display fail?

[jbc]

Yes too much humid can cause mold. 1 cm at the bottom pure water is way too much and DON'T fill the drainage pipe full, because of mold. And dont let it dry out or it will harden. Air circulation is essential, but if you lower the humidity too much it will harden and the ant wont be able do dig easily.

Lasius niger needs only like 30- 50% humidity. And they will adapt to many things.
If you can upload your setup (the basins, ant displays in which are your ants kept in) I would be more able to help you with your ants moving to the ant display.

My Lasius niger died because.... I couldn't find a reason why. Ah I know maybe of stress, or that I didn't hibernate them properly. It was a year ago when she died and now I have a quite a collection if you would like to read I can count them in my next post.

This is too long what I wrote shortly - Too much water - mold, too little - hardens. Lasius niger adapts to almost anything and lives in 30 - 50% humidity. My first colony died of mold and bad hibernation process.

Cheers, jbc!