"Natural Nest"? A noob needs help!!!

[Coolconcrete]

Hey Ho Ant-lovers,
i do not have an ant colony yet but i will. I wanna know from you how to maintain a "natural" formicarium.
I will probably use an aquarium and put a bit of fresh forest soil in it and let some grasses growing. The ants will probably dig into the soil and make there their nest. Would this work? Do you have some advice?
Thx.
Ant love forever.
ps.: sry for my bad english...
pps.: I'm from germany do i have to wait till may to catch a queen?

[Antlover84]

A few bits of advice, firstly about a natural formicarium. If you REALLY want a dirt formicarium, you're better off buying one of the old fashioned dirt ant farms, and linking a couple together or something like that. But I would advise against a dirt formicarium for many reasons. The first and most dangerous reason is that you can't easily see your ants without disturbing them if the farm is flat and not vertical. This can be be problem, as you can't see if something is wrong in the nest, or the ants are having a nesting problem. The second, cave-ins. Bumps happen, and when they do, plastic doesn't give. Dirt might. The last thing you would want is for you to bump into your formicarium and cause some of the rooms in the colony to collapse. There are many other reasons that I don't know of, but I'm sure others do.

To clarify:
I AM new

I DON'T know you can make a dirt formicarium work

I WOULDN'T take my advice as fact

And as always, wait for a consensus! The worst thing you can do is jump to conclusions.

Ant love forever!

-Antlover84

[Batspiderfish]

I tried doing this once as a kid, and spider mites eventually took over the entire setup, so I would avoid grass and maybe use a less nutrient-rich substrate (or at least one that will be suitable for whatever ants you intend to keep in there). The one drawback with this kind of setup is that you're only likely to see the ants when they come above-ground to forage (or maybe you can see them along the bottom, if the stand you are using allows for it). You'll just have to take it on faith that the ants are doing ok in there until it's totally clear that you have lots of workers.

[Antlover84]

I think uncle Milton farms connected is not a good idea because of that u can't hydrate the nest... I think u should be able to do this...

Do you mean not be able to provide water to the ants, or provide a hydration gradient? You could put a test tube of water in one of the outworlds for water, but I do think that a hydration gradient would be a challenge.