Need Risk Analysis Feedback for these Lasius' new floating Setup.

[AdaLollA]

Hello again,
so winter is about to fade soon in Europe and with that the next ant season is about to begin. And since my ants are currently chilling in the basement I thought it would be a good idea to make them a new home - and I might have gone a bit overboard with it:

Images (without food dish)



Videos
Quick 5s Perspective view: https://youtu.be/-LobsNgTKHM
Mist System for humidity: https://youtu.be/1HtEfw3IgrI

Context
This is the second ant terrarium thingy i built. The first one was a palidarium (earth and water) and only lasted only about a year in that form. It then started to show minor signs of mold on wood because of the high humidity. I had to do an entire makeover and remove all of the water just to prevent any health risks for the animals.

Since i am sure someone on here would have warned me about that risk. That's why will now ask the Pros before releasing my ants into the new setup!

Setup & Features
Islands:
> 2 hollow "rocks" filled with dirt for them to build nests in (top left & right)
> 1 exchangeable food dish rock slot (top center)
> 1 actual rock (bottom center)

Base:
> Preserved sticks that are glued and tied together to look a bit like a dead tree. (These are very sturdy and are not flexing one bit. They should not let me down even in the long run.)
> Grout and red sand mix for the base (to hold it steady and to prevent the ants from digging there)
> Live moss as decoration, as well as cover for the hollow, diggable "rocks"

Escape Prevention:
> Tupper box (at the tree base) with Fluon on the inside of the sides. My hope is that the ants can only fall back inside, not climb out.
> The entire ground and the lips below the tupper container was custom built to fit the shelf. It is watertight and should be to tough for the ants to chew through. It also has Fluon on the inside of lips.

Mist System:
> And of course the automated rain / mist system (which was basically build from old laptop parts and a bottle...). I plan to only turn it on a couple of minutes every other day.
> I also added another, tiny floating island which hides a sponge within it. This island is not on the pictures. It collects a lot of water (about 5ml per minute when the mist system is on).

Now the big question
With that all out of the way: Do you guys see any immediate problems that need to be fixed before the ants move in? Do any of you have any minor (or major) adjustment suggestions?

One of my biggest concerns is the moving of the ants. I hope they accept the elevated nesting spots since they have only rarely had the comfort of digging in dirt (they nested mostly in some wakooshi plastic nest up until now).

p.s.: I tried embedding youtube videos but got only blank sections; and according to this thread I am not the only one: https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?t=545

[AM1C39]

First of all I must congratulate you on this amazing build!
Currently my only concerns are if/when the ants fall off, how will they get back into the main nesting/foraging area?

[SolenopsisKeeper]

First of all I must congratulate you on this amazing build!
Currently my only concerns are if/when the ants fall off, how will they get back into the main nesting/foraging area?

Maybe make a larger dish for the tree?

[AdaLollA]

First of all I must congratulate you on this amazing build!
Currently my only concerns are if/when the ants fall off, how will they get back into the main nesting/foraging area?

Thank you! Yeah you're right - that might be a huge issue...

As I said what I am hoping for is that if an ant falls into the outer layer (silver-ish ground) it can only attempt to crawl onto the inner tupper box. The tupper box has no Fluon in the outside so they should be able to crawl up on the outside. And hopefully they just slip and fall into the inside.

You think that could work? Or is that me being to optimistic...

[AdaLollA]

First of all I must congratulate you on this amazing build!
Currently my only concerns are if/when the ants fall off, how will they get back into the main nesting/foraging area?

Maybe make a larger dish for the tree?

Great idea! however I need the inside dish to be pretty small so i can move the nest without any issue. Afterall they have to hibernated where I live. And maintenance has to be somewhat accessible aswell. So I sadly can not go much bigger with the inside tree dish.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

First of all I must congratulate you on this amazing build!
Currently my only concerns are if/when the ants fall off, how will they get back into the main nesting/foraging area?

Maybe make a larger dish for the tree?

Great idea! however I need the inside dish to be pretty small so i can move the nest without any issue. Afterall they have to hibernated where I live. And maintenance has to be somewhat accessible aswell. So I sadly can not go much bigger with the inside tree dish.

I would just keep an eye on the silver dish, as I am not sure if Lasius is “intelligent” species like weaver ants and fire ants who make bridges to get to places. Also, you would need some sort of “repellent” to keep teh ants from foraging in the silver tray,or else you might get some trash piles there, and when you do matience for your colony, you’ll leave some guys behind.

[Antloverhuman]

Maybe you can put the smaller dish inside of the bigger dish? Then if you want to move the setup you can pick it up with the smaller dish and the bigger dish can keep any of the fallen ants.
You can have a floating nest in a dish which is in a dish which is on a rack

[AntsLuxembourg]

It looks like the ants could fall onto the ledge and walk away but for the rest, it looks amazing. I suppose you will either fill it with water (drowning ants) or use fluon / baby powder to keep them inside.

For the rest, looks amazing.

[AdaLollA]

I would just keep an eye on the silver dish, as I am not sure if Lasius is “intelligent” species like weaver ants and fire ants who make bridges to get to places. Also, you would need some sort of “repellent” to keep teh ants from foraging in the silver tray,or else you might get some trash piles there, and when you do matience for your colony, you’ll leave some guys behind.

Thank you, that is a very good point! I will definetly make sure to take a close look at the silver dish.

Also i didn't know ants could be so smart as to build bridges over obstacles? That's crazy! I hope mine don't tho... Oh lord i really hope.

I didn't even know such a repellant exists. As I said I use Fluon (Insectoslip) in both the silver-, as well as the tupper-tray. But directly repelling the from foraging would be also great! Can you please link me some info or products for that? Thanks!

[AdaLollA]

Maybe you can put the smaller dish inside of the bigger dish? Then if you want to move the setup you can pick it up with the smaller dish and the bigger dish can keep any of the fallen ants.
You can have a floating nest in a dish which is in a dish which is on a rack

That is pretty much my current setup: I have the smaller dish (tupper) inside the bigger dish (silver thingy). Both lined with Fluon (Insectoslip) on the inner lips. Am I missing something?