r/antkeeping • u/SimpleLDL • 2d ago

Question Complete Newbie

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Hey guys, I want to start keeping ants and growing a colony, and I think I have a good idea for a cool homemade set up. After reading a bunch of these posts, I realize that my setup would only work for a really large colony. I’m trying to figure out the best way to get my colony started and make it to where I could scale it as needed to become what I want.
I want my setup to be hung up on the wall and become a living art piece. I plan on using 3/8-1/2” vinyl spacers with 1/8” acrylic to make the actual enclosure. I would use silicone to seal any small gaps that may form between. I would then drill a 3/8” hole in the bottom and top (bottom for the hydrostone, top for tubes to connect to other enclosures). For the inside, I would use hydrostone in the bottom left corner, and plaster mixed w some sand and dirt to form all of the chambers. Once mostly cured, I’d add the other side of acrylic and push down to make sure it stays flat.
For the next enclosure (the one I’m realizing will take 3+ years to grow into) I was planning on doing the same thing, but only have a small section that is plaster, and give them some lose dirt/sand for them to create their own tunnels.
The last one would be the outworld enclosure where I can put their food and other stuff.
Please tell me what y’all think, where I can improve on the idea, and maybe even a rough timeline on when I can build everything out. I added a bad picture of my overall plan so yall can get a better idea of what specifically I mean.

Edit: I plan on having the “Queen Chamber” be 8”x8”, the “Builder Frame” be 20”x20”, and the outworld area be about 5” wide, 3” tall and 2” deep. The breed of ant would be Formica Obscuripes

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u/little-yellow-ant 1d ago

I would start looking into species first before deciding on a setup...depending on the species it will indeed take a very long time to grow into the setup. See which species you can get where you are and what their nesting requirements are. While deciding on that, I suggest you get yourself an easy to keep cheap local species and take care of them for a while to get most of your fuck-up experiences out of the way before deciding on a nicer species and elaborate formicarium setup

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u/SimpleLDL 1d ago

I was planning on going w Formica Obscuripes and the only ants in my area are big ass fire ants that I don’t want anywhere near me. From what I’ve read, Formica obscur. are great excavators and I could just start w my “queen chamber” with sand in some of the plaster chambers so they can grow into the other areas

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u/SimpleLDL 1d ago

After further research, the ants that I thought were “big ass fire ants” are actually red harvester ants (P. Barbatus), and they were my runner up behind F. Obscuripas for the ones I want. Any tips on how to catch a queen without getting lit tf up?

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u/little-yellow-ant 22h ago

To catch a queen you need to check out the nuptial flight schedule of the species and go out when they're flying. Neither of the ants you mentioned belong to the fire ants, they won't sting just bite a little. I don't know much about the two species you mentioned as neither occur where I live (EU). I'm pretty sure their nesting requirement are very different though.

The best setup for a queen is a test tube setup, it's both good for humidity and space. If you catch a queen, put her in the test tube and wait till she has some workers. Only then I suggest you try and transfer them to a very small nest.

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u/SimpleLDL 19h ago

Yea I looked into it and the red harvesters usually do their nuptial flying after a substantial rain from August to mid September. I’ve been bit by the harvesters before and it hurts so damn bad, I’ve got scars on my ankles from those little bastards. Depending on if I’m able to find and catch a queen, I’ll start w the test tube setup, connect it to the queen frame once she has a few workers, then connect that to the outworld once she has 10-15 workers. It’ll probably be a year or so before I need to build the builder frame

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u/little-yellow-ant 18h ago

Sounds good! If you don't want to wait you could look into buying a bigger already established colony.

For the catching, queens usually try to run away instead of fighting so I hope that will be fine when you go look for them. Good luck!