Two Species in One Set up

[ProTurtle435]

I'm rather inexperienced in ant keeping and have been watching a lot of YouTube videos (that's how you learn how to do things now a days lol) and stumbled across AntsCanada, which launched me into having the desire of creating my own set up with my own queen! I continued to browse through ant related videos during my free time while attempting to find some queens! My first colony I created was a tetramorium E. species and I guess I got to excited and continuously looked at them and moved them into a set up to early. I had plants in the setup as well and couldn't find a window space in my house, so I moved it outside, little did I know by the time I got home..a rainstorm had come through my area and completely wiped my colony out (the tank had over 2 inches of water above ground!!) Determined not to go wrong the next time around I prepared for my second attempt. I found a YouTube channel called NordicAnts and thought the idea of a vivarium was really cool! So I started planning for an all natural/self sustaining vivarium. I was lucky enough to capture a camponotus species (which I am pretty sure is a carpenter ant) and a prenolepis imparis queen. I have attached some pictures of my vivarium (its not entirely self sufficient yet) from different perspectives. I've already introduced the carpenter ants to the area and they seem to be thriving in it. They have already burrowed into the wood I've placed into it and have around 7-9 workers when I put them in about 1 month ago. I know they have expanded by the growing amount of sawdust at the base of the wood. I wanted to know if adding my prenolepis imparis to the vivarium could be possible and if they would leave each other alone? It is a deep container and thought these would be two prime species to put together considering one is active during colder temperatures and burrows deep underground and the other not even underground in wood during warmer months. I really want to see some sort of balance between the two and how they interact with food and such. I want to see which would become the "alpha colony" if you will. The prenolepis colony has around 16 workers in a test tube and the camponotus probably around 12 by now in the wood. I feel like confrontations would be reduced considering they are active at different seasons and how far away the nests are. One deep underground and the other high above it. Also I have a moat of water preventing them from escaping with a small current caused by the filter needed for my 4 sharks (goldfish) .

[ProTurtle435]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9cbopAy9aaAajRyZW5meUx0NDM4Z2tJeXVsTEFlbm5yZFhN/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9cbopAy9aaAbVBZc1JwVmpmcXpDc2lKNVhkc0RQcWI1UE5B/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9cbopAy9aaAaGxDWVRQMV94b2tFT2l4RmR1U3FQSlJwM3JB/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9cbopAy9aaAallsMnl3dTdFRDE5QVdTaFlBMmRycWNfQi1R/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9cbopAy9aaANUlFVnpERDdXMlpLQ01jcmVoaWtSYWxHUFFN/view?usp=sharing

Sorry about the links I don't know how else to send the pictures.

[Hunter36o]

I do not have a vivarium as of yet myself as my ants are far from ready for one. But from all the research I've done (YouTube and articles on Google cos old school is the new school ) and from what I saw in you images although the epic looking. It will be way too small for 2 different species to live in peace, you have to take into account that these guy grow in numbers and with every new gen that is ready to get to work each gem will hold higher numbers. This will result in all out war.

You would need a full office deck sized vivarium with a serious landscape design to come even close to allowing two completely different species to live in harmony. You have to realise that ants do not tolerate other ants near their nests even if it stumbled apon it by mistake.

Sorry for the bad news

[Hunter36o]

Sorry I also forgot to ask the average water temp?

[ProTurtle435]

Usually around room temp but I have had a mystery going on. For the past week my goldfish have been dyin, one every day. It has a proper filter, current, and temperature. I've even checked PH levels and seem to be around 7.2ish (the average for goldfish being 7.5) which is .3 lower than preferable. I have no idea if this is the reason they have been dying from. So far out of 7 there are 3 left. And one seems to have markings, perhaps bruises/injuries or some sort of fungus. I've quarantined that fish in a separate tank tho, and I am going to treat for various fungi. Thank you for the insight tho. As much as an ant war would be neat to watch to see how each species would react to it, it would be brutish and the ants would suffer heavy casualties on both sides. NordicAnts has a tank several meters long and perhaps this is the reason the species he is keeping are not completely annihilating each other. Although he does have several species, like argentine ants, silver weaver ants, trap jaw ants, i think pheidole, termites, camponotus, and the baby stealing ones that are super small and sneak in and steal other ants eggs I forget the name, he uses them as a population control. Along with various other organisms like snails, water bugs, some kind of scorpion looking thing, and a bunch others. His ants also farm which is really neat. My buddy has a larger tank made ffor turtles we planned on turning into a terrarium. It is about 4-5ft long but only about 1 foot wide. Would that be a suitable container to merge species? The only reason I ask this is because we don't want our colonies growing insanely fast each colony would act like a population controller of the other. Plus again we would like to do something like NordicAnts we think having our own ecosystem within an enclosed environment wold be really cool. Thanks again for the insight!

[Masterspiro]

Couldn't you just have two tanks surrounded by water and have one on each side?

[ProTurtle435]

That would be two different setups right? I was wondering if I can place them in the same setup since they are not active at the same times in the year, also that Prenolepis Imparis is MUCH smaller than the camponotus meaning the camponotus won't be able to fit in their tunnels, I've also heard that Prenolepis Imparis don't really like confrontations (basically that they are shy) and that they have repletes, which leads me to conclude they wont come out for food very often. Update on the fish though, there is now only one left and I have discovered black markings on the body and fins, and white dots on the tail. So they are dying from some type of fungus. I've added some medicine to the water to see if I can save the last fish from this fate. R.I.P Goldies. I haven't seen the camponotus come out to feed in about a week. Is this normal? They have burrowed deep enough into the wood so that I can no longer see/check up on them anymore, which I would have done in a case like this. I'll try to place honey in the setup to see if this will tempt them out.