11 replies to this topic

[KingLarryXVII]

Hey All,

  I am a long time engineer by background, with a long history of tinkering, and was looking for my next hobby project when I thought, what would the most full-featured, ideal formicarium look like?  Integrated heating?  Diapause cooling?  Humidity control?  What is the ideal nest material?

 

So thought I'd start a discussion with the community here: what features do you wish you had in formicaria that would make your life easier, improve the lives of your colonies, or just be cool to have?  What problems have you run in to that you think might be a good fit for some over-engineered solutions?  The sky is the limit here and would love to bounce ideas off of you all and ultimately make some cool stuff.

 

There are no bad ideas!  Thanks in advance!

Edited by KingLarryXVII, September 11 2025 - 6:14 AM.

[dboeren]

Thermostat temperature control w/ gradient sounds great to me.  Built-in humidity sensor.  Audible alarm if temp is out of range or the water reservoirs fall below minimum.

 

Better escape-proofing would be useful too, both for the main lid and also for the ports where you might need to service some tubing/stopper based thing.  A safety band of permanently unclimbable material around the top of the outworld would be awesome too so it doesn't need to keep being re-applied with fluon.  Maybe some special port connectors that act like an airlock?

 

Glass cleaner & de-fogger.  Nobody likes it when you can't see what's going on in the next.  Maybe like a small windshield wiper with a button to activate it?

 

Built-in video camera(s) w/ bluetooth so you can stream, record, or just peek at what's going on from a better viewpoint

 

 

If we're talking like magic level stuff:

I'd love a button that puts all the ants to sleep for a while so you can do a big nest cleaning or to move them into a new home so they just wake up already there.

What about sensors that alert you if there is fungus/mold/etc...?

A TINY TINY Roomba that cleans up the trash and puts it in a trash storage bin.

Medical diagnostics.  Why is the colony not doing well?

[Ants_Dakota]

I think outworld tech and escape prevention is the biggest thing you could work on. You may not be a chemical engineer but creating some kind of permanent slippery surface on the top of an outworld to keep ants from escaping would make you rich!

[ANTdrew]

I want a fleet of nano-robots that would take care of cleaning up ant waste for me. Also, invisible force fields instead of glass to cover nest areas. 

[dboeren]

Built-in ant counter with digital display broken down by classes like Queens/Alates/Majors/Workers/Brood

[KingLarryXVII]

 

I'd love a button that puts all the ants to sleep for a while so you can do a big nest cleaning or to move them into a new home so they just wake up already there.

I want a fleet of nano-robots that would take care of cleaning up ant waste for me. Also, invisible force fields instead of glass to cover nest areas. 

Ok, maybe the sky isn't quite the limit, how about tree height?...ha!

 

Great ideas everyone, keep em coming.

[Stubyvast]

Definitely a cooling/heating system. That would be excellent. It would also be great if the nest was set up with modules that can be easily removed and swapped, so if you want to quickly grab brood from a section you can simply remove it, or if one gets too dirty, you can swap it out with a fresh module without crushing or having to rapidly seal the exits from escapees. Also, a watering set-up like a Tarheel ants nest, but with a larger reservoir and some way to check the water level, like a floating meter or something. 

It would also be very nice to have multiple entrances/exits to the nest, to A. connect more modules and B. connect/swap outworlds. The outworlds themselves should have nice big hatches with proper sections specifically designed for fluon or other barriers. I also think a plate embedded into the floor of the outworld would be awesome, so that way you can remove the plate quickly if it gets dirty from food. The outworld should also be designed so that the opening hatch is part of an ant-proof lid that can be removed for cleaning. The outworld's floor should also be made from a material that doesn't absorb liquids, preventing stains and making it easier to clean. ALSO, having a fan hooked up to one of the sides of the outworld would emulate wind effects in the outdoors. This would also compensate for the lack of absorbing substrate in the outworld, as the wind would dry things out quicker. 

 

And also, forget to mention, we should really standardize tubing sizes for connecting outworlds and formicaria. Or just do away with tubing entirely and go with a simple formicaria-to-outworld adapter/connector. 

Actually, I may just build a model of all this in Blender and submit the drive file here to formiculture. It's probably difficult for everyone to picture this no doubt.

 

So there you go! All my frustrations with current set-ups boiled into one. If you could build an all-in-one set-up like this, I'd definitely buy it!

[RushmoreAnts]

Definitely a cooling/heating system. That would be excellent. It would also be great if the nest was set up with modules that can be easily removed and swapped, so if you want to quickly grab brood from a section you can simply remove it, or if one gets too dirty, you can swap it out with a fresh module without crushing or having to rapidly seal the exits from escapees. Also, a watering set-up like a Tarheel ants nest, but with a larger reservoir and some way to check the water level, like a floating meter or something. 

It would also be very nice to have multiple entrances/exits to the nest, to A. connect more modules and B. connect/swap outworlds. The outworlds themselves should have nice big hatches with proper sections specifically designed for fluon or other barriers. I also think a plate embedded into the floor of the outworld would be awesome, so that way you can remove the plate quickly if it gets dirty from food. The outworld should also be designed so that the opening hatch is part of an ant-proof lid that can be removed for cleaning. The outworld's floor should also be made from a material that doesn't absorb liquids, preventing stains and making it easier to clean. ALSO, having a fan hooked up to one of the sides of the outworld would emulate wind effects in the outdoors. This would also compensate for the lack of absorbing substrate in the outworld, as the wind would dry things out quicker. 

 

And also, forget to mention, we should really standardize tubing sizes for connecting outworlds and formicaria. Or just do away with tubing entirely and go with a simple formicaria-to-outworld adapter/connector. 

Actually, I may just build a model of all this in Blender and submit the drive file here to formiculture. It's probably difficult for everyone to picture this no doubt.

 

So there you go! All my frustrations with current set-ups boiled into one. If you could build an all-in-one set-up like this, I'd definitely buy it!

Adding onto that, it would be useful to have a sort of valve system separating the different modules so you could close the valve before removing a module for cleaning, further preventing escapees.

[electrodynamix]

I believe the perfect formicarium would be different for different species, considering anys have a very large size range, among other things

[KingLarryXVII]

Thanks all.  Trying to narrow it all down to a single list so far:

 

Integrated Heating (cooling?)

Humidity control/sensors

Modularity with isolation

Escape prevention

Nest cleaning

Easily changed/modified Outworld

In nest monitoring (cameras, counting?, sensors)

 

 

I believe the perfect formicarium would be different for different species, considering anys have a very large size range, among other things

100% true, but much of this list could be designed generally, and then applied to match a various species in any individual formicarium. 

 

Keep em coming, already have a few ideas for some of the above to start experimenting with.

[jo16]

For the heating and cooling system, you could add a schedule so if it's winter then it would automatically change the temperature. 

[T.C.]

For about four months I ran through prototypes to build a formicarium with integrated heating/cooling. Good luck is all I have to say. The heating part was easy, the cooling part not so much. There's too many variables and the materials that have to be safe for the colonies interfered with the idea. I gave up on it. I would be intrigued to see what you could come up with. And by the way, I had come close but the "cooling feature", but within an hour it had froze everything. Such a sudden temperature change alone would kill everything. Again good luck.