Jordan, Pete and I managed to finish the ant farm! It is now home to over 1000 red harvester ants. Unlike old ant farms that use dirt or sand, ours uses a gel that was originally developed by NASA for ant experiments in space. We are still looking into ways to make the gel ourselves, but in the mean time we found a website that manufactures the stuff, antgel.com. The gel contains all the food and water that the ants will need to survive. It even helps prevent them from developing infections. The ants should have everything they need to reach the end of their life cycle, which should be in about 6 months.
Right now, all the ants in our farm are workers, we don’t have a queen yet. We have been discussing ways in which we could obtain a queen. But it will probably be awhile before we decided to go through with it, since we would have to take extra precautions to ensure that a queen wouldn’t escape.
We are trying to get a camera up and running so we can make some time lapse videos of the ants as they work. In the meantime, stop by open house and check them out for yourself!
Our original plans. The actual farm size is 16.0″x26.9″x2.25″. We went with box dimensions that were in proportion to the golden ratio for ascetics.
The link to http://www.antgel.com is relative.
whoops. Thanks!
>>> We went with box dimensions that were in proportion to the golden ratio for ascetics.
You made it proportioned to the golden ratio to please religious people who practice strict self-denial?
Where did you get the ants? Is that gel similar to the gel that the pet stores sell for crickets? It looks like it must be firmer, though.
I got them from , a reptile food supplier. It was the cheapest way to buy ants in bulk. Also, I’m not sure if this gel would also work for crickets. I don’t see why not though.
I wonder if ants are good for reptiles. I would like to breed them better. Right now I breed mealworms
http://clubfauna.com/articles/reptiles/how-to-breed-mealworms