Page 1 of 1

My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:10 pm
by Fulkol
Nearly finished with my new set of an Ytong nest + an acrylic outworld, just need to seal the nest a bit more and add the slippery cover to the top of the otworld.
I plan to house a colony of Lasius Niger in it.

This is the Ytong nest itself, an acrylic cover is screwed to it + it has hot glue gasket on the sides, there are 3 entrances, one which is being used for the tube and the rest are cottoned ventilation holes/spots for future expansions. The water chamber is an upside down pine tree shaped hole, water should spread from there.

Image

This is how the two setups connect.

Image

The otworld itself, it is made of 25x25 cm acrylic plates, the edges are hotglued together, the ground itself made of a layer of grout/gypsum and a layer of dry, waterpool filter sand on the top of it. A few rocks, a piece of coal and a a little bonsai are the decorations, the bonsai is in a hole in the gypsum, I've poured the gypsum around the plant's original pot and it has it's own ball of soil that it lives in. I think it's unlikely for the ants to build a nest in there because it's not deep or big enough I guess and the plant doesn't need to be watered too frequently.

Image


This is how I plan it will look and where it will be, the nest will be covered most of the times with some kind of cardboard I guess and the outword should recieve enough light but not too directly.

Image

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 9:10 pm
by Mowteam
This looks like a very nice set up 8-) 8-) :D

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 1:52 am
by shaky33
Could you make some guide or something to make this for the craft noobs out there.

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 3:58 am
by Fulkol
Mowteam wrote:This looks like a very nice set up 8-) 8-) :D
Thanks :)
shaky33 wrote:Could you make some guide or something to make this for the craft noobs out there.

I will be making more one ytong nest probably this week, I could make photos and a topic about the progress if you wish. Not planning on making more 1 outword tho, but as I've said it's just 6 piece of 25x25 acrylic glass glued together with a maintenance shaft on the top one and one drilled hole for the connection tube. I did the ground as shown in one of the AntsCanada videos and basically that's it.

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:46 pm
by AntsSA
I like it :lol: :lol:

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:01 pm
by larynx
Where did you acquire your ytong from if i may ask? :geek:

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:44 pm
by Fulkol
AntsSA wrote:
Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:46 pm
I like it :lol: :lol:
Thanks :)
larynx wrote:
Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:01 pm
Where did you acquire your ytong from if i may ask? :geek:
It's a very common building material here in Hungary, I've bought a piece twice longer (cut it in haf=this + the one I'll be making) for as much as 1.5$

Re: My new Ytong formicarium + outword

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:15 am
by Fulkol
It's been several months since I've made this and it has been a great success so far so I thought I'll post updated pictures to encourage others because I saw there are several threads on the topic.

The left one houses formicas of some kind I've got this year, too few for photo shoots yet so they'll be coming next year, on the right are my lasius niger colony thriving.
Image

Left tube is honey with water and food coloring (it gave me a great opportunity to better understand food sharing in the community and the young is a lot more visible also), the right one is clear water. The bonsai as you can tell died pretty fast, on the right the foil is leftover honey from feeding the colonies still in tubes, the pink cup got salt in case they need it(not sure if they ever do), there's a used lemon in there also because I've got tiny insects feeding on their waste and I wanted to make sure to get ahead of mite infections.
Image

Ants eating a grape and the mealworm shell they ate a day ago
Image

This is the Ytong nest as you can tell and it's packed with ants and you can see the blue food sharing places as well 8-)
Image

Close up on the larva and the pupae, you can see the larva being blue from the food and the fecal dots on the pupae are blue as well.
Image

The queens cell with the eggs and the queen on the left-center, also you can notice workers hanging on the walls with bloated gasters serving as the fridge of the queen
Image