About a month and a half ago I caught a carpenter ant queen (camponotus decipiens I think), and put her in a test tube set up. I built a homemade formicarium last year based on research I did on the internet. Now I have questions about conditions for the nest, and the test tube for that matter. She seems happy enough in her test tube. She has about 6 or 7 larvae. I have the test tube sitting on a terrarium heating mat that I have plugged into a box controlled by a relay on a thermostat. I also got a humidity relay that I'll probably attach to an electric drip system once the colony is big enough to move into the formicarium in a year or so. The formicarium has slots for my sensors so I can get a good baseline of both temperature and humidity. I'm also going to add a reptile heat lamp over the outworld with a day/night cycle. Lack of air conditioning in a whole room is not an option in my little apartment.
My question is what the exact values should be. I've been keeping the test tube between 78 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm not worried about the humidity in there because I know this setup is pretty much ideal for that. Should I make it a little warmer or cooler? Also the temperature and humidity sensors on the formicarium are on opposite corners. I should end up with a gradient of both considering the heating source and moisturizing medium will also be on opposite corners.
This is my current ant keeping setup. The queen is under the red towel on top of the outworld.
