Guys, today I’ll be needing your help to decide on an epic terrarium home for my OG
ant supercolony of yellow crazy ants, we call the Golden Empire, so get your VOTING fingers
ready, guys, and help me choose the future home design, which will be the epic kingdom
of one of the coolest ant colonies of this channel!
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Enjoy!
All of us voting as a community proved to be an awesome success with our massive fire
ant colony, the Phoenix Empire, where you guys helped me choose the design of what we
now call the Ember Islands.
I would have never in my wildest dreams thought an Avatar floating mountains paludarium would
turn out so epic, and so today we’re doing this again!
Over twenty or more fat Golden Empire queen ants are counting on us to design the right
home for them.
So I’ve narrowed our home options down to five terrarium designs, which I believe are
both doable and feasible homes for the ants, and I’ll go over the pros and cons of each
one by one, but because Youtube got rid of the POLL cards, voting will have to happen
another way, so stay tuned until the end for instructions on how to cast your vote.
But before we go over the terrarium designs, for those of you who are new, let me introduce
you to the awesome ant colony we’re choosing a home for today.
Perhaps their story will help you better choose a home design.
Meet the Golden Empire, one of the three OG ant colonies of this channel that has had
a long and turbulent history.
They used to live in a massive terrarium we called the Hacienda Del Dorado, but one day
out of nowhere, the colony was infested by a plague of vampiric, blood-sucking mites,
which reduced the huge supercolony of millions to just a few hundreds.
I managed to quarantine a portion of the survivors, and treated their vampiric mites with predatory
mites harvested from rhino beetles, which I still find to be so random, but anyway,
after that, the recuperating colony grew a little bit over time, but for some reason
weren’t reaching the same numbers they used to be at.
Then the remaining queens died out one by one, probably because of old age and/or their
past mite trauma, but in our video two weeks ago, I fused the remaining workers with a
new healthy supercolony and thereby revitalized them.
They now live in an epic AntsCanada setup, where they’re continuing to grow in massive
numbers!
And so it’s for this new Golden Empire, this yellow crazy ant supercolony with about
20 or so queen ants, that we’re designing a terrarium for today.
I can’t wait to get started with you guys.
So here are the terrarium design choices for us to choose from.
AC Family, listen to each of them carefully before making your final decision.
Option #1: Lush Rainforest Habitat
This terrarium choice is a popular choice for most ant keepers, because it’s attractive,
functional, and is the closest option to the ants’ natural habitat.
Essentially, it would be much like their old terrarium, the Hacienda Del Dorado, full of
tropical plants, rocks, driftwood, and other decor.
It’s essentially like taking a chunk of natural habitat and placing it into a terrarium.
It will be bioactive with lots of soil creatures to help with breaking down the ants’ waste
and dead bodies, and we’ll likely add a water feature with a waterfall to one side,
but these ants don’t swim very well, so it won’t be too big.
If we go this route, I plan on making the best rainforest scape I possibly can.
The only con I can think of for this design is that after creating something as epic and
outer worldly as the Avatar floating mountains paludarium, something like a rainforest terrarium
build might seem too simple or plain, but either way, I’m always a big fan of the
traditional terrarium builds.
Option #2: Gold Mine Crystal Caves
This one was definitely one that came up A LOT during our AC Senate conversations, and
something I’ve never before tried!
This terrarium would basically be a diorama-style build, just like the Ember Islands, where
it would like we shrunk a massive piece of landscape into a tank.
My vision for this dioramic terrarium build was an epic mountain range of caves whose
insides would be all connected and would be stuffed with soils.
The yellow crazy ants would be able to enter these caves and nest within them.
We could place miniature lights inside the caves so they kind of sparkle, and the coolest
part is, I could try to fixate crystal geodes in certain places like amethyst or agate.
I even figured we can build some of the caves up against the glass so we can see inside
them and at least see some nest action!
This terrarium could also incorporate a waterfall feature somewhere, perhaps cascading down
one side of the mountain.
I mean, Golden Empire - Gold mines?!
The theme match is a no brainer, and I think it could look really cool if we manage to
do it right!
Possible cons of this design are, if we want to keep it looking like a shrunken piece of
landscape, as you saw in our Ember Islands diorama adding full-sized plants will make
it lose that grandeur effect, as we would lose that sense of scale, but if you guys
want we can include the same plants as we did in the Ember Islands, mostly mosses and
rock weed.
In fact the Ember Islands is looking pretty sweet right now, and totally greening up,
as the rockweed and moss continues to spread like crazy on the rock shelf and even up in
the floating mountains!
Or maybe you guys do want full sized plants.
Up to you guys!
Plants by the way, help keep the soils clean of toxic nitrates produced by the ants’
decaying garbage and dead, but another thing to keep in mind is full-sized plants, unless
they’re epiphytes that attach to rocks and wood, will need soil to grow, and the ants
will likely choose to nest inside that soil and might totally ignore our caves.
Another con of this design is that the ants might excavate the soil from the caves, and
simply build a nest in all that excavated soil, as we saw the Phoenix Empire do.
Just some things to keep in mind.
Option #3: Village of Tree Homes
This one is a cool one!
You know that great tree in the movie Avatar?
The massive 20,000 year old hometree of the Na'vi.
They live inside it.
Well, I was thinking of recreating this but using a few bonsai trees.
I believe I have seen bonsai trees with hollows, where I could stuff soil and sphagnum moss
so the ants could create nests within them.
Or I could simply take hollow driftwood and use bushy epiphytic plants to make them look
like ancient grand trees.
The trees could all be connected via vines, much like our Ember Islands so the ants could
travel between them creating satellite nests.
It could be an entire tree home village!
Imagine the ants pouring out of the trees and trailing along the roots system at feeding
time!
If we wanted to, we could make the entire setup a more vertical-style terrarium with
just one massive tree that grows 5 feet high!
We could use real vines to climb the tree.
That’s another option!
Possible cons of this design are, like in the last cave option, the ants might hollow
out the tree of its soils, then create a nest in all that excavated soil.
There’s no harm in this, but it would render our hollow trees useless.
Also, if we’re using actual bonsai trees, the trees will need soil which again, the
yellow crazy ants might choose to burrow in, totally ignoring the nesting space inside
the trees.
If we choose to create a tree using driftwood and epiphytes for the leaves, there would
be no soil needed so it could solve that problem.
I foresee lots of potential in this design!
Option #4: Pyramids & Temple Ruins
This one is something I suggested for the Phoenix Empire back when we were first voting
for their terrarium.
It would essentially be a collection of temples and pyramids, which completely match the Golden
Empire aesthetic.
We can also build the inside of the temples up against the glass at some parts so we can
see some of the nest action, as well!
Again, this would be a diorama-style terrarium build so it wouldn’t have a lot of full-sized
plants, but we could add rock weed and mosses.
We would stuff the temples and pyramids with lots of soil for the ants to nest in comfortably.
I think we could make a truly magnificent templescape, with an epic sacrificial platform
for feeding.
Imagine the ants pouring out of the temples and pyramids to feast on the food offering
we give them on the sacrificial platform?
Such a King Kong or Indiana Jones-type action movie scene!
Again cons would be an inability to use massive plants, which diminish the diorama effect
and also require soils which the ants might choose to nest in, and also the possibility
of the ants again excavating the temples and pyramids of its soils and building nests within
the piles.
But if you guys don’t mind the ants living in the soils and don’t care much whether
or not the ants choose to make nests within them, then this could be a very awesome and
attractive terrarium build, which I’ve never done before.
And finally Option #5: Something Else
If you have an idea that you would like to suggest, the table is open for you to give
your awesome and creative ideas!
You all are some of the most creative people I know, and your ideas often blow my mind
so if you vote for this, feel free to leave your suggested terrarium ideas in the comments!
Alright, and so these are our five options.
Which one are you voting for and why?
So to vote, check the pinned comment of this video, and in the replies simply hit the THUMBS
UP button on the option you like the most.
If you can’t decide on just one, feel free to thumbs up more than one if you please.
The option with the most number of LIKES will win, and as soon as a winner becomes clear,
I’ll start the building process right away, which might take a few weeks to complete,
but I’ll keep you guys all updated.
Earlier this week, I tried presenting these five terrarium design ideas to the Great AC
Senate, and here’s what they voted for.
”Gold Mine & Crystal Caves” was the AC Senate’s top pick with “Pyramid Templescape”
and “Tree Village” coming in second and third place, and “Rainforest Terrarium”
in fourth.
I’m super interested to see if all of you AC Family agree with their picks.
Thank you, AC Council for your votes, and for always looking out for these little ants
we love and care for.
I’m sure they will cherish living in whatever home we choose for them and design.
I just love that you guys are so involved in the lives of these ants, following their
stories every week, participating in these votes, and offering your very valuable input
regarding the various aspects of their lives.
For me, it has always felt like we were taking care of these ants together, and it truly
means so much to me to see that so many people care about ants, which most of the world don’t
ever see or think about, except when they’re trying to kill them.
But you guys are different, and it truly fills my heart to see such a great gathering of
ant-lovers.
And so, until the day comes when our Golden Empire finally moves into their soon-to-come
epic kingdom, always remember guys, it’s ant love forever.
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?
I can’t wait to get started on building the Golden Empire’s new terrarium with you
all, so if you haven’t yet do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit
ALL so you get notified at every upload.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to hear my
top favourite vote of these options, as well as my least favourite.
Feel free to go check it out!
And guys, be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant keeping and collecting gear
shipped to you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can
get the most out of your ant keeping experience.
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
We also have a helpful forum and ant colony trading marketplace on the site.
Visit AntsCanada.com today.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What is your favourite feature of the new Ant Room?
Congratulations to Michael Jones who answered:
My favorite feature is definitely the second floor of the ant room that lets
you look down on the other ants below.
Congratulations Michael Jones, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from
our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
Why would adding full-sized plants in some of the terrarium options possibly
make things more complicated?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant
Keeping Handbook from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help
us keep making more.
It’s ant love forever!