Earth Formicarium Questions

[Adakun]

I have a 10g tank I would like to convert to a formicarium. I like the idea of being able to see the ants digging their own tunnels, so my plan is to take 3 pieces of acrylic and line 3 of the walls leaving a 1/2" or so gap that I would fill with soil. The area in the middle would be their outworld.

Questions I have:

1: What sort of soil medium should I use? What I have on hand is silica sand, potting soil, and eco-earth. I thought a mix of eco-earth and sand might be a good idea.

2: What sort of hydration system would work? My first idea is to create a 'false bottom' to the foraging area, so that underneath would be hollow and could be filled with water, with tiny holes drilled in the acrylic to hydrate the soil. The second idea would be to create a column of perlite in the center of one (or all) walls and hydrate that. The last option is just plain watering it, since I plan on having live plants anyway. Or maybe a combination of all three would be best?

I'd love to hear any thoughts/suggestions on this.

[AntLove5Ever]

I have a 10g tank I would like to convert to a formicarium. I like the idea of being able to see the ants digging their own tunnels, so my plan is to take 3 pieces of acrylic and line 3 of the walls leaving a 1/2" or so gap that I would fill with soil. The area in the middle would be their outworld.

Questions I have:

1: What sort of soil medium should I use? What I have on hand is silica sand, potting soil, and eco-earth. I thought a mix of eco-earth and sand might be a good idea.

2: What sort of hydration system would work? My first idea is to create a 'false bottom' to the foraging area, so that underneath would be hollow and could be filled with water, with tiny holes drilled in the acrylic to hydrate the soil. The second idea would be to create a column of perlite in the center of one (or all) walls and hydrate that. The last option is just plain watering it, since I plan on having live plants anyway. Or maybe a combination of all three would be best?

I'd love to hear any thoughts/suggestions on this.

The potting soil is what I would use, or some clay. Also I think the false bottom would work as long as the ants cant get in there.

[ooper01]

I made a soil formicarium, but it is different from using an aquarium. Not sure if you would be able to create a hydration system like the one I created, but it may give you some ideas. My thought was to try and mimic the real world as much as possible, so I made the hydration system "deeper" in the ground. It has worked great so far.