Formicarium Materials PLEASE HELP

[ANThonyluscious]

Hello, I am curious what material works best for ants when making a homemade formicarium like the hybrid nests featured here! Ie. Stone, Glass, steel etc. I am fortunate enough to work in a field with access to many machines to help me blueprint and create one or many, I just don't know what would work best. Thanks!

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Hello, I am curious what material works best for ants when making a homemade formicarium like the hybrid nests featured here! Ie. Stone, Glass, steel etc. I am fortunate enough to work in a field with access to many machines to help me blueprint and create one or many, I just don't know what would work best. Thanks!

Plaster works great, or so I have along with acrylic. If you want to make one fully out of acrylic, you can look at Aus ants acrylic nest. I prefer acrylic, as it is much more “clean” and doesn’t break easy, but you could 3d print nest, but it can be difficult or expensive without making them weak.

[ANThonyluscious]

The aus ants acrylic nests are not my style also I am looking to make my own from scratch and want suggestions on base materials. Acrylic is okay but do you have any experience with glass or stone or even steel? I will be taking raw materials and running a hefty cnc fabrication machine to it and making pathways and chambers for the ants.

[AM1C39]

I have made many wooden nests, but you have to have the carved wooden parts inside of a glass tank or something like that.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

The aus ants acrylic nests are not my style also I am looking to make my own from scratch and want suggestions on base materials. Acrylic is okay but do you have any experience with glass or stone or even steel? I will be taking raw materials and running a hefty cnc fabrication machine to it and making pathways and chambers for the ants.

Steal I think wouldn’t be optimal, as it has no natural grips for ants, like acrylic. It is also very heavy in my experience. Glass and Hydrostone works very nicely I have heard. Glass could be replaced with acrylic btw. Magnets are nicer connectors, but rust more than screws.

[AM1C39]

Ytong was a very popular material for formicariums, do people still use it?

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Ytong was a very popular material for formicariums, do people still use it?

Ausants is all I know who sells nest. I love it for my Odontomachus… Pain to clean, and the things to hold screws in came out. Ausants ain’t responsible though, ytong wears away.