Should I Keep Ants?

[SamuelMamuel]

I would love to keep ants so much, they are so incredible. However, I am not quite sure if I have the time to keep ants. About how much time per day does it take to keep ants?

[Batspiderfish]

You really just have to give them fresh food and clean up after them daily -- the rest is going to be watching them.

I can get the important stuff done in about 15-30 minutes.

[Vaporeon189]

mmmmmm about 20 mins for clean up sooooo....

[larynx]

It doesn't take too much out of the day if you only have a colony or two to look after. I personally keep 2 to 3 colonies going at once, and i also keep a bunch of founding colonies for the GAN project during the spring and summer months. I havent found it too time consuming yet, unless im going out of town then it can be some work getting someone to check on them and feed them properly. Other than that if you keep it simple you should have time. I would say it takes about 30 to 120 minutes a day to feed and care for all my ants when i have a full load. A "full load" being 3 colonies or so, and 30-40 founding queens at various stages.

[SamuelMamuel]

What nest do y'all recommend for a beginner, hybrid or omni? I setup a poll on another post if you wanna vote there

[Vaporeon189]

What nest do y'all recommend for a beginner, hybrid or omni? I setup a poll on another post if you wanna vote there

hybrid

[SamuelMamuel]

And why that nest type?

[Vaporeon189]

dont listen to me im not experienced. but i think that is more suitible for some reason

[Serafine]

What nest do y'all recommend for a beginner, hybrid or omni? I setup a poll on another post if you wanna vote there

Depends on the species you want.

Fire ants literally burst into existence with a speed that forces you to add a new formicarium or outworld every 2-4 weeks as their queens can lay up to 11000 eggs per week.

Camponotus on the other end of the spectrum are very slow-growing and will only reach 100-200 workers after two years (in year 3 they sort of explode into the thousands) which means they can perfectly live in test tubes placed in an outworld for two years before they need more space (additional outworlds or formicariums).
They are also rather dry-loving which makes them perfect candidates for omninests (same goes for harvester ants which need a dry place to store their seeds) while ants that prefer more moist breeding grounds might do better in a hybrid.

[shaky33]

I would love to keep ants so much, they are so incredible. However, I am not quite sure if I have the time to keep ants. About how much time per day does it take to keep ants?

Starting off ants require very small amounts of time, its actually recommended that you dont touch them at all at the start. As the colony grows it requires more work and more time. But for the first year for most species it requires very little time.

Also if you live in a region where you have to hibernate your ants that might be longer. I would recommend Campotonus sp. as they are fairly easy to find and they take a while for their colonies to grow.