I need feedback on my design and plans!

[Hawkeye]

Wow the video is so interesting.

Glad you like it. I thought it would be easier to do a video like that to show how everything would be linked...

[Hawkeye]

Hello AC Lovers!

Just a quick update this time, as I am gathering advice and feedback from all of you. I decided to add 1 more particular plant, which I hope will be beneficial to my ants. The Solanum sisymbriifolium A plant which secrets some sort of natural chemical which attracts nematodes. It then immobilizes them and keeps them from breeding. They will eventually die off and become food for the isopods.
As ants are susceptible to a variety of nematodes I thought this natural defense against them would make a nice addition.


That's it for now! As always your feedback is more than welcome!

[Hawkeye]

Wow the video is so interesting.

How is your Camponotus colony doing? If I remember correctly you were in Croatia right? Are the temperatures there working in your favor?

[Camponotus]

Wow the video is so interesting.

How is your Camponotus colony doing? If I remember correctly you were in Croatia right? Are the temperatures there working in your favor?

I have got one queen with eggs still no larvae or workers (I know a lot of things about them cause youtube and research). In Croatia it's mostly warm to hot but there are a few times rains. I have seen only 2 spicies of Camponotus here which is Vagus (my dream spicies) and Fallax (one that i have)

[Camponotus]

I live in north part of Croatia where there is not sea. At the sea part there are Black Widows and scorpions and totally fifferwnt apicies than here where I live for example, at sea part there are Messor, Pheidolie, Cromatogaster and here where I live are Camponotus, Lasius, Tetramorium. It is really weird like I live in other country

[Hawkeye]

I live in north part of Croatia where there is not sea. At the sea part there are Black Widows and scorpions and totally fifferwnt apicies than here where I live for example, at sea part there are Messor, Pheidolie, Cromatogaster and here where I live are Camponotus, Lasius, Tetramorium. It is really weird like I live in other country

Well I know you're very active on the forums, I see your posts left, right and centre. So I am sure you will keep us updated
I think even in the Netherlands which is a relatively tiny country the ants are spread geologically as the surroundings differ a lot.

[sartwell90]

Seems like we got a Camponotus crew gathered here, I came to check out your build and honestly find myself blown away by the intricacy of the design. I really love the idea of a self-balancing culmination of species and biomes that creates a miniature circle-of-life so to speak.

One concern I personally would have after having caught up with your thread is attrition via drowning. The Camponotus species out where I live are fairly clumsy at times at there would almost certainly be water deaths. A large enough colony might survive if the rate of deaths is comparable to the rate of reproduction. For my local species of Camponotus it would take several years for a colony to get to an appropriate size for that.

For all I know, your Camponotus species might mature and reproduce much faster than C. pennslyvanicus or C. noveboracensis and all that worry would be a non-issue. I am curious though, how big would you raise the colony to before moving them into such an awe-inspiring goliath of a setup?

[Camponotus]

Seems like we got a Camponotus crew gathered here, I came to check out your build and honestly find myself blown away by the intricacy of the design. I really love the idea of a self-balancing culmination of species and biomes that creates a miniature circle-of-life so to speak.

One concern I personally would have after having caught up with your thread is attrition via drowning. The Camponotus species out where I live are fairly clumsy at times at there would almost certainly be water deaths. A large enough colony might survive if the rate of deaths is comparable to the rate of reproduction. For my local species of Camponotus it would take several years for a colony to get to an appropriate size for that.

For all I know, your Camponotus species might mature and reproduce much faster than C. pennslyvanicus or C. noveboracensis and all that worry would be a non-issue. I am curious though, how big would you raise the colony to before moving them into such an awe-inspiring goliath of a setup?

I have a smaller spicies of Camponotus Fallax and I want bigger which is Vagus but I can't find the queen. I was looking at antwiki Croatia and saw that in Croatia there are C. Ligniperda and C. Herculeanus but I can't find the colony of those two which is really sad

[Camponotus]

I live in north part of Croatia where there is not sea. At the sea part there are Black Widows and scorpions and totally fifferwnt apicies than here where I live for example, at sea part there are Messor, Pheidolie, Cromatogaster and here where I live are Camponotus, Lasius, Tetramorium. It is really weird like I live in other country

Well I know you're very active on the forums, I see your posts left, right and centre. So I am sure you will keep us updated
I think even in the Netherlands which is a relatively tiny country the ants are spread geologically as the surroundings differ a lot.

I see you too being very active.

[Hawkeye]

Seems like we got a Camponotus crew gathered here, I came to check out your build and honestly find myself blown away by the intricacy of the design. I really love the idea of a self-balancing culmination of species and biomes that creates a miniature circle-of-life so to speak.

Thank you for coming to check out our little Camponotus crew and my plans. I got the idea from the Hacienda del Dorado that Mickey built in one of his videos. But since he had problems with escaping/invading ants, water quality and frequent water changes, I wanted to see if I would be able to improve on the design. So I started off enthusiastically creating 3d models. My first designs actually had a refugium/sump incorporated in the main tank. However the more I was drawing, the more I ran into practical problems (since I am a novice ant keeper and have no experience with aquariums), which led to doing more research, which led to more drawing, etc. I'd say I am at about cycle 10 now? (I have actually redesigned my refugiums last night.)
Since I wanted the setup to be natural, well as far as you could call housing a colony of ants, fish, shrimp, muscles, etc. inside a plexiglass box, inside your house natural... I pretty much knew straight away that I could use the Chinese spring rose to attract aphids, as mine has been covered with them from time to time. That was the stepping stone to find other beneficial plants and creatures.

One concern I personally would have after having caught up with your thread is attrition via drowning. The Camponotus species out where I live are fairly clumsy at times at there would almost certainly be water deaths. A large enough colony might survive if the rate of deaths is comparable to the rate of reproduction. For my local species of Camponotus it would take several years for a colony to get to an appropriate size for that.

Stuff like that is why I posted all my plans on this forum, that is exactly the type of feedback I am looking for to improve my designs. I fully expect some of the ants to drown, but honestly, I have no idea how many. The moss covering the edges should be far moister than they would prefer, so I am hoping that would become sort of a natural barrier. If not the moss should at least give them plenty of surface area to grip on to.

For all I know, your Camponotus species might mature and reproduce much faster than C. pennslyvanicus or C. noveboracensis and all that worry would be a non-issue. I am curious though, how big would you raise the colony to before moving them into such an awe-inspiring goliath of a setup?

From egg to worker takes about 10 weeks, so this species is probably just as slow in developing as the others. I do have a trick up my sleeve as I have not one, but 2 fertile queens. I want to steal eggs/larvae/pupae from one (let's call them the donor colony) and offer them to the other (the ehhh display colony?) The latter colony should, therefore, grow faster than they would in nature.
Even so, it will still take them quite a while to reach an appropriate size and until then I plan to keep them in the large hybrid nest from the AC store. I do not intend to even start building this monstrous undertaking until about May next year. Which is actually a good thing, as I am still tinkering with the design based on your feedback and input. As for the size of the colony before I release them? Probably about 150+ workers, I am not sure? At some point, I will just disconnect their outworld and connect them to the paludarium instead. I won't hassle with lights on their hybrid nest to coax them out or anything, I feel that they will probably more under their own volition once the time is right and they deem the surroundings suitable.