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Feeling adventurous?  Why not build your own ant farm?

Where to get ants for your ant farm>

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Build You Own Ant Farm

 

Ant Farms are fairly easy enough to build yourself; you just need two sheets of glass, of whatever size you wish, and some wood. You will need to construct a fairly wide base so as to prevent the ant farm from toppling over, especially if you are attempting to build a large one.  It is probably best to carve two deep grooves in the wooden base which are just wide enough to slot the two panes of glass into. The wooden sides need only be a little wide enough so the grooves can be carved into them so as to slide onto the side of the glass. You could use glue as well to give it extra strength, but I doubt that glue on it's own (without the grooves) would be strong enough to hold the glass, but you could experiment a little here. The lid should fit snuggly onto the top of the ant farm so as to prevent the escape of ants. You don't even need a lid if you are a little adventurous, you could simply line the top edges of the glass with Vaseline, which should prevent the ants from crossing (though it needs frequent replacing, and the clever ants will drop stuff into it in order to safely cross it).  If you place a lid on the ant farm you shouldn't even need to worry about air holes, as you can always take the lid off for a few moments every few days.

 

Glass fish tanks are a lot easier as there is no real building effort involved - just simply use an empty fish tank and fill it ¾ with a nesting material.  You can also place in some twigs or stones onto the surface of the sand/soil, just to give your ants something to explore, and it provides useful landmarks for your ants to navigate with (just try not to move them once the ants have moved in).

 

The next thing is what do you use for the ants to tunnel in. I use either compost peat or sand, depending on the colour of the ants; I use sand for dark coloured ants, and compost peat for light coloured ants - it's just easier to see the ants that way.  Once you have placed the soil/sand into the ant farm/tank you will need to dampen it or any tunnels that the ants try to build will just collapse; so just progressively pour in a little water and allow it to soak through. It is best to cover the sides of your ant farm once it is complete, as ants hate light getting into their nests.

 

 

 

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©  Alex Wild