5 replies to this topic

[evanmancini2011]

As some of you may know I have a pavement ant colony. And their numbers have grown immensely. I currently have them in a Ants Canada test-tube portal which have two test-tubes filled with water which they currently live in, and one that is completely dried out that they used to live in. It is becoming very hard to feed and clean inside of the test-tube portal without multiple escapes. Do you think if I used some clear plastic tubing and attach a small our world that it would work well or would it be to big for the colony?

 

Here is a picture of the our world:

  

I would obviously add some grout to the bottom of this outworld.

 

 

Here is a picture of the colony:

[RushmoreAnts]

A colony is never too small for an outworld. They should have an outworld as soon as the first workers arrive. A similar sized colony in the wild would have the whole world as their outworld, so having space is only natural to them.

 

The main problem is usually people moving them into a nest too early, as small colonies like small enclosures. Keep them in their test tubes until they literally can't fit any more ants inside. And believe me, you will always underestimate how many ants they can fit in any given space.

[ANTdrew]

Yes, they are ready. You can never give ants too much outworld space.

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

As said, no such thing as too much "outside." We can't give them more than they would have had in nature, it'll intrinsically be less.
We can only put them in too big a nest, as that is an alien environment compared to what they would have made for themselves in nature. 

And the more outside/outworld space you can provide, the closer to their own natural behaviors you will get to see.
Think of it as an illusion of outside. The more convincing the illusion to them is, the more they just act they are outside normally.

If you can run an open top outworld that's the maximum illusion for them. They do a lot of "see" by smell, so fresh air circulation keeps the outworld smelling more like outside, while a closed top (even with scree mesh) is more likely to smell a lot like inside the nest from their POV. And they may mostly act in the outworld a lot like they do in the nest if they don't notice the difference.

Though with good climber ants it can be a bit of challenge to keep them contained without an outworld lid. Depends on the nature of the ants you keep.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, Yesterday, 7:26 AM.

[ANTdrew]

If anything, that outwold in your photo is too small. A well cared for Tetramorium colony would outgrow that in about six weeks. I’d think bigger if I were you.

[evanmancini2011]

Ok thank you for all your input.