ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Verduveltje]

Hi guys,

New to the forum, not completely new to keeping ants.

I currently have one Lasius niger colony with about 20 workers.

What I want is a colony of Pheidole pallidula and a colony of Messor barbarus. I have bought two aquarium (30x20x20, glass) in which I want to keep these.

My plan is to carve some small rooms in a piece of Ytong. Since these species can dig in Ytong, I expect them to expend their nest as they want. So more or less like a sand nest, the ants make their own chambers just like they want.

Did anyone ever try this And, if not, what do you think about this? (will this work)?

Kind regards,

Verduveltje

[Markus]

First: it's written Messor barbarus.

If you want to see, how it looks, when a colony digs into their nest:
viewtopic.php?f=164&t=16748&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75

Hundreds of ants hiding there, that was not so intresting to see and I don't know, if it was healthy for them...

Well bedder for diging would gipsum be (in German Gips),
but I don't know if it would be good for looking at them!?
Maybe a sand nest would be the more natural variant!?

[Verduveltje]

Thanks for your quick reply!

I'm not German (I'm dutch and can read German a bit, but the text in your link is to much and google translate doesn't really help alot...). I do understand that they dug really big chambers in the Ytong.

However, I want to place a piece of Ytong in the "outside world", so I guess they won't just dig all the way through the Ytong? I mean, they probably want some sort of nest...

And besides that, do you know whether they will just dig one big room, or will they start with smaller rooms?

[Markus]

Look at 14.10.2011: (Freitag) the pictures show, what they diged
and some hundrets oft ants inside...

[Verduveltje]

I understand, let me explain what I mean:

I have a 30x20x20 glass aquarium, in which I will place a 10x10x20 piece of Ytong (carved a bit for the looks).

The colony of Messor barbarus I want to place in there will be one queen and 26-50 workers.

If I carve some small rooms in the Ytong as a nest to start (which will be enough for, let's say, three months (I don't know this, depends on growth of the colony of course)). If they need more space, they will start digging in the Ytong.

What I want to know is what is most likely to happen in the given situation?

Will they create new rooms, or will they simply start digging one big room like the one in the url you gave?

I want to know this because I don't really care where the new rooms will be placed and whether I'll be able to see these. However, if they will just create one massive room in the Ytong this is a bad idea...

I'm sorry if this doesn't explain my intentions and you might think I don't want to understand your point.

What I'm currently thinking is:
- Small colony so the space will be enough for a while- Colony in the url simply massively outgrew their nest and therefore created as much space as possible- Colony will create rooms first (as long as the Ytong piece is big enough), when the colony really outgrows the nest they will simply create one big room.

Short addition

My point is, when using a sand nest (for example: 20x20x2), when the colony really outgrows this, wont they simply make one big room as well?

[baumarkthammer]

Messor barbarus and Pheidole pallidula need very long to dig the smallest chamber into Ytong.
It is not a good idea to put them in a small Ytong nest and expect them to expand the chambers!
I guess they might even start just putting their brood outside of the nest when they run short of space because the growth of the brood might be faster than the expansion of the space in the Ytong.

Building a nest that is big enough isn´t that hard, just stick to that.

And do you want to keep Messor barbarus and Pheidole pallidula in one basin?

[Verduveltje]

Ah I see, well that basical means that I have to construct a way to be able to have them grow into the nest (breakthrough a small wall in the ytong and that way they will have access to new chambers).

I don't want to keep them in the same basin, I have two 30x20x20 basins to keep them in. However, I do think these species might be able to keep togheter in one basin when the "outside world" is big enough because the Messor barbarus will take the seeds and the Pheidole pallidula will take the bigger insects...

Alright, but I guess my question has been answered and it's probably not a good idea to "trust" on the ants to create a proper nest in Ytong theirself. However, I will try this later and see how it works out!

Kind regards,
Verduveltje