Jorgebengal,
Your responses are very encouraging. If you do not mind, I would like to collaborate with you since my end goal is unusually similar to yours. I could use a second/third brain. Of course I’m not going through this an artist, so we’ll split paths when we need to.
One of the businesses I run is in land development so I am familiar with the entire construction process, from utilities to design & engineering to final sale. As you are aware, it takes a bit of tweaking of what you already know to make everything suitable for ants – thankfully, formicaria are nowhere near as complicated as figuring out what’s wrong with a $150K industrial food processor or dealing with city politics. I think you’ve chosen the right hobby; few pets can compare to ants when it comes to customization options and DIY-ability in regards to their “home,” especially when approaching the topic as an artist.
It’s good that you are in California – there are tons of ant suppliers there and (whether it is competition or simply a huge abundance of ants) their prices are really low too. You will have no trouble sourcing the ants you want. Scrixx, dspdrew, and nurbs are the three people that I can pull from the top of my head who have decent sized inventory and prices. Search for their sales thread in the marketplace section. You’re near SF so that might be a problem, but I can’t really fix that.
As for ant species, I would advise going for a hardy and fast growing species. No leaf cutters or anything specialized needing a lot of attention. I’m using Tetramorium immigrans as test subjects due to their wide availability, growth rate and adaptability. They make for pretty good lab rats; handles stress well, grows fast and eats everything I provide. I might be overstepping my boundaries by saying this, but have you considered snatching an Argentine ant colony to inhabit your formicarium? They are hard to kill, fast growing and extremely adaptive. Invasive pests, but isn’t it just too bad that they’ve already established themselves in California? Might as well exploit the opportunity.
I’m relatively new to the hobby myself. Rest assured, it’s a quick learning curve so your project is not entirely impractical for those purposes. The size, however, may need to be adjusted.
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I’m going to make a few assumptions, listed below. Use the numbers and letters as references in your response.
- 0.1. You are blocking off most of this large 4’ x 4’ x 6’ formicarium, that will hereafter be referred to as “the Nest,” in such a way as to have the majority of the nesting area visible through the glass.
- 0.2. The Nest is going to use sand as its substrate, the interaction of which and the ants is a design criteria.
- 0.3. The Nest is going to fit in a 4’ x 4’ x 6’ box of glass or acrylic, either premade or constructed by yourself (which I recommend because it’s EASY and you will save hundreds if not thousands of dollars at that size). Probably 1” thickness with bracing to hold all that weight?
- 0.4. Budget is unlimited. We’re not going to waste any money but we’re not skimping either.
- 0.5. All general purpose tools available for use. This part isn’t really important at this stage since there isn’t a finished design. First things first.
- 0.6. All customization options open. This is just an idea for now.
1. First problem right off the bat is the sheer size of that glass container. Unless you have a different idea, you’re literally going to need a ladder to dump buckets of sand into it. I recommend making smaller boxes that can plug into each other. The gap between the boxes also opens up lighting possibilities for viewing in the dark, or having different “biomes” as nesting material. I would think it’d be an impressive project if you had 6 segments of this formicarium connected to each other that would slip into a groove in a pony wall? You could incorporate a home bar setup with that pony wall so your friends can enjoy a drink while admiring the ants and the Nest. Building one is not very hard if you already have woodworking skills, especially since you don’t need any engineering done with one as it’s not holding up any structural elements.
1.1. This segmented approach also allows you greater flexibility and freedom for your project. I suspect you will run into more than your fair share of problems with a 4x4x6 foot glass box sitting in the middle of your garage or god-forbid your living room. Also you will be hard pressed to find ant colonies that are over 20K in numbers for sale, so your most realistic option is to grow the colony yourself. I will get to that later.
1.2. You might also want to consider a creating a vivarium for an outworld(s). It’ll help the aesthetic appeal and create a semi-autonomous ecosystem, with the ants being the star of the show.
2. The Nest is going to be extremely heavy. How are you going to move it when you need to? The dry density of sand is approx. 100lbs per cubic foot. Assuming you fill 1/8 the nest with sand, you have 1,200 lbs just from the sand. The weight from the glass is no joke either. You’re looking more than half a ton, minimum. Is this feasible? There’s no “light transport” with this size, especially if it’s one big piece. You’re going to UPS freight a large and heavy glass box? Covering the package with “fragile” stickers won’t even be enough. Not only is it large, but also unwieldy.
2.1. In about 5 years (or sooner) I was going to dig up my backyard for a 20’ x 10’ x 8’ concrete underground storage unit for ants, with a 20’ x 10’ x 8’ additional space for “lab” work. That’s what I calculated would be enough for 3 million ants spread across 30 different colonies. In other words, 50 cubic feet can easily hold 100,000 ants. There’s no data on maximum captive pavement ant colony sizes so I just chose 100K as the upper limit.
2.2. The Nest has 96 cubic feet to its name. All of it won’t be utilized, but even 1/4 that amount can hold 50K small-medium sized ants. So there’s your scale.
3. Unless you include artificial weather (sprinklers on top?), ants are going to have a hard time digging into it without it collapsing, especially as the weight on top will increase dramatically as they dig lower and lower. 6 feet of stable vertical nesting area using only sand as substrate and support will take an engineering miracle. We’ve conquered impossible before, but there are other substrate materials available. Just saying. The 3D sculpture will limit free tunneling, but that’s one way out.
4. I ran my sand through a #30 sieve, washed it out with water to get rid of salt and the like, then baked at 300 degrees F for 2 hours to sterilize. The sand is only used retain heat in my heating setup but there’s the possibility of using that sand later so I just went ahead and sterilized it anyway.
4.1. You’re looking at maybe 12-24 cubic feet of sand to sterilize. I mean, you don’t necessarily have to do it all at once but that’s a lot for a home oven. I won’t suggest anything that might cost you your job so this one’s up to you to figure out.
5. Ants are pretty cheap to maintain, it’s just that your project is going to eat up most of the costs. Here’s my quick and dirty list of costs and general ant keeping strategy. The other members will most likely add their own notes to this if they took the time to read this far. This section also covers basic budgeting and maintenance. Not a comprehensive list.
5.1. Ants, feeder insects and maintenance
5.1.1. Ants range from $10 per queen to hundreds of dollars per queen+formicarium. I don’t recommend spending hundreds of dollars on one queen. Unlimited budget does not mean you should lose common sense. If you buy many queens, I’m sure you can get a discount.
5.1.2. I use raw organic honey for carbohydrates. The “raw organic” bit is a marketing scam but Costco still has the cheapest stuff. One $7 bottle should last you a year.
5.1.3. Fruit flies are good for founding colonies. A starting culture can be bought from a pet store for around $10. I use 8:3:1:8:8:1 ratio of potato flakes, nutritional yeast, powdered sugar, hot water, vinegar and cinnamon respectively in that order, no mixing. Probably around $15 a year to maintain consistent colony size of 500 individuals. Without intervention, they will double population sizes every 5 days. Heat up to 85 degrees F for faster production. I bought the smaller variety of wingless fruit flies, there’s a bigger one available that reproduces slower.
5.1.4. Mealworms are next up once your colony has enough workers to tear into this thing. Buy regular or giant mealworms, it doesn’t matter, at any pet store. The giant ones are advertised as sterile but that’s not true. I bought giant refrigerated mealworms and they’re reproducing like crazy. It cost about $12 for 100. You don’t need to buy any more, there’s about a 30% death rate but the 70 remaining beetles will lay thousands of eggs during their lifetime. Bedding is wheat bran with carrots and broccoli for moisture; $20 a year to maintain colony size of 500 individual (mealworms only), plus cost of housing (Tupperware?). They will quadruple population size every 2-3 months without intervention. Heat up to 85 degrees F for faster production.
5.1.5. Wild-caught insects. Why would I do this when I have dedicated farms to feed the ants?
5.1.6. Crickets. I don’t deal with these since they smell and make noise.
5.1.7. Roaches take time but are easier than crickets. I actually just bought some Dubia roaches so I don’t have much data for them. I keep them at 95 degrees F with egg cartons for housing and carrots and broccoli for water. I should probably give them some water gels. They cost me $10 for 50 medium sized roaches, I hear they double population sizes every 4 months. Get these first because if that’s true, these have the longest lead time. They have more protein than crickets as well. I should think these cost about $15 a year to maintain a pop of 500 individuals, more if you want to expand container size.
5.1.8. Springtails clean mold. I just bought a culture as well for $12. Josh’s Frogs ships them for $30, but try to find a local pet store and pick it up yourself. Cheaper and no liability of mass die-offs during transit. I keep mine at 85 degrees F with uncooked rice grains and baker’s yeast sprinkled on top of the culture to grow mold for the springs to eat. I spray them with bottled water every two days. Apparently they double in pop size every 2 months – waiting to confirm. I guess the charcoal (which must be wood based, not the briquettes you find in stores) would be the biggest cost, maybe around $15 for two years of maintenance?
5.1.9. Dedicate about 2-3 hours every week to upgrade, maintain, feed and take care of your feeder colonies and your ant colony(s). Doesn’t take much but they are still your pets so you need to take care of them.
5.1.10. A basic cost analysis shows you need $138 for the first year, then $57 every year to maintain all the above insects (assuming you spend $30 on 3 ant colonies). California has sales tax so those numbers probably need to increase 10%. That’s it for the ants and their food. Now for the housing.
5.2. Formicarium building
5.2.1. I did a quick custom build quote online with all the options for 1/2” thick glass. It’s $4 per square inch! The total comes out to $73,728. Uh, even with unlimited budget you’d have to be a fool to do this. In order to not break the bank, it’d be smart to only order glass for the viewing side, and to construct the rest of the Nest with wood layered twice with clear epoxy or with similarly functioning materials. If you want to view this thing from all sides, you may want to re-think the design.
5.2.2. The $73K is really the upper limit. If we try to save money by improving this design, I’m sure we can get it down to $1K for one side. The major problem is that the sand is heavy and will exert pressure against the container – that’s the only reason why thicker and much more expensive glass is needed. If you had a nest with no substrate and zero stress, you could get away with 3/8” thickness easily at that size. The costs can only be truly realized once the design is complete, so get that sorted first. If you had a way to somehow reduce the pressure and still keep all that weight…
5.2.3. Silicone adhesive is 7 dollars per tube, which is no big deal. Also I realized you guys in California have sales tax, so you’re screwed even more on the glass. Hahaha.
5.2.4. Sand in my local area is measured by cubic yards. The loading and delivery cost, which is the majority anyway, can be mitigated by doing some work yourself. It shouldn’t cost you more than $50 for all the sand you need unless you are filling more than 1/8th of the Nest.
5.2.5. I’m not familiar with 3D printing, but it sounds like it’ll be rental + materials for you. The structure does not need to be particularly strong since the sand will exert equal force from all sides so no special treatment needed there. Once again, the container is the only thing stopping you from having half a ton of sand in it without breaking.
5.2.6. $300 for a little home remodeling if you hire someone, $50 if you do it yourself. If you decide to go fancy, it’ll cost upwards of $2K for that home bar.
5.2.7. As you can see, it’s pretty useless to try and estimate a cost for something that’s not even designed yet. For the size of the Nest, it would be hard to construct anything for less than $1K.
6. Quality finished product that can be replicated. Those words are golden to my ears/eyes. I recommend creating a spec sheet like the one below. This will help organize all the components of your nest and make it scalable, and if need be, customizable. This will work for the smaller proof of concept piece as well. For a larger project I definitely recommend making something like this. That being said, there’s no formicarium in existence complicated enough to warrant actual blueprints – you can either take that as a challenge or be relieved to know it’s not going to be too difficult to figure out. Nothing about ants will really make you scratch your head. Keep it stupid simple.
7. It’s great that you have a large network of pros to ask for advice. It’s a given for the real world since people tend to lose a lot of money if something goes wrong; I’ve mentioned before that this stuff is a lot simpler and less high-stakes than what you do for a living but options are always good to have.
8. If you don’t mind me giving you an executable plan of action, here’s what I advise.
8.1. Look into ant species that fit your criteria, but remember you will be limited by what is available for sale, or what you can capture. Buy or capture several colonies to ensure a greater chance of success.
8.2. Depending on which route you decide to go, you will need to have a prototype available to house the colony and foster their growth while you work on the final product.
8.3. Immediately buy your feeder insects as per section 5. Get your feeder colonies going so you have a fallback in case you can source a large ant colony right away. They will be infinitely sustaining and infinitely growing with proper maintenance, so just find your balance and adjust how fast they are allowed to expand in response to the ant colony(s) you will source. Buy them now because there’s a lead time for roaches and mealworms to be “ready” for feeding per section 5. You will have to spend initial money on the first batch anyways, so sooner is better than later.
8.4. Sketch out a concept design. You have to start somewhere. Don’t just start building like me because you actually want to showcase your stuff and have it look good.
8.5. Post your design here so I (and the other members?) can review it. I don’t think it needs to be said, but nobody here is going to monetize your design. Not because it’ll be bad but because it’ll be highly specialized. I post everything halfway decent I come up with, so there’s that.
I suspect you will have to start out much smaller than you may have initially thought, but given that you have an end goal in mind and are willing to take the steps necessary to get there makes me want to take a part in your journey, and maybe have you help with mine as well.
I’m sure the other members will have their own comments to add. I may have also missed something as well. Let me know if you have any questions in the meantime – use the numbers and letters as references.
