An exhilarated spiny ant waves its antennae through the air
smelling and taking in all the new fresh smells of its new home.
“What a strange, but cool place!” it thought, as it turned back to rejoin its fellow sisters.
Along this towering driftwood, the spiny ants explore the strange mosses growing all about.
Along this giant fern, the ants hang out,
and this ant here shouts, “OK, so where are we supposed to be putting the dead bodies again?”
It seemed, the entire ant colony’s system had been disrupted.
These were strange lands, the ants had never before charted.
You see these ants, a bit dazed and confused at the moment,
wandered out from the wreckage that was once their home.
But little did these ants know, this new lush, rainforest kingdom was our beloved
gift created just for them. They’re soon about to realize that these new expansive territories
are now their forever home and fit them perfectly. Welcome everyone to the AntsCanada Ant Channel!
Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel, and hit the BELL ICON. Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!
Real quick: I just wanted to acknowledge and thank our awesome friends at The Ants:
Underground Kingdom who sponsored today’s episode, and who just celebrated
their first anniversary, so happy birthday Ants Underground Kingdom!
The Ants: Underground Kingdom is the world's first ant & insect themed-simulation strategy
mobile game, that has attracted over 30 million players worldwide,
and has entered the TOP3 game charts on the App Store and Google Play in multiple countries.
In The Ants: Underground Kingdom, you are the ultimate Ant Ruler to collect the resources, lead
the Queen, train special ants, grow the colony, create alliances, defend against enemies and build
your own ant colony. It’s very much like what we do on this channel, which is why I love it!
Inside the anthill you can explore and build; it includes a Gacha system where
you can cultivate your ultimate ant army with so many awesome “special ants” of different species,
and my favourite part: outside the ant hill is a rich, real-life environment,
full of adventure and biodiversity! It’s truly like being part of the ant world!
The new “Ant Season” will begin online this month, with an upgraded battlefield, 12 new
Season Super Ants, and exclusive Season rewards, all in celebration of the game’s 1 yr anniversary,
so join the Ant Season to fight with your alliance,
by clicking the link and code I’ve put in the description box of this video.
And now on with the episode.
AC Family, today we’re about to create the most epic naturalistically designed terrarium for our
new beloved ant colony of spiny ants. Last week, I asked you guys what kind of housing you wanted
to see them in and the majority had voted for a naturalistically designed terrarium and so today
we are going to do just that! But do stay tuned until the end because I’m going to be
asking you a very important question regarding these spiny ants. All this and more coming up.
Now before, we go ahead and start building this ant colony, their epic terrarium, let’s have a
quick look at our new ant colony, shall we? Within this jar is a huge colony of 300-400 spiny ants,
from the genus Polyrhachis. They’re called spiny ants due to their unique
spines that adorn their bodies. They’re such a beautiful species with matte black bodies
paired with golden iridescent gasters. Check them out! Don’t they look just stunning?
Now this colony is a polygynous colony, which in ant science, simply means there are multiple
egg-laying queens in the colony. I did spot a few of the queens emerging from the paper
towel for brief periods, but I can’t seem to spot them now here. Can you guys see any
queens? Let me know if you do at any point of this video! Ten points for you if you do!
The colony was actually collected by a friend from outside, and I was totally happy to take
them in because I’ve always wanted to own a thriving Polyrhachis colony, but haven’t had much
luck in the past with the genus. Hopefully this spiny ant colony will adapt well to captivity,
and as you’re about to see shortly, I have some really great plans for their terrarium
that I think will really give them the best shot possible at thriving under our care.
Their main living area in the jar is attached to a tube which leads to the place where I have
been placing their food, an AC Test Tube Portal from Antscanada.com. Now in last week’s video,
we gave them their first meal, and AC Family have a look at this! In just a day, they completely
finished their test tube of sugar-water. In fact, they were also halfway done finishing
their second dose of sugar-water. Man, do these spiny ants have a sweet tooth! They also are in
the process of finishing off a second super worm that I gave them. They love their meat, too!
The ants gathered in the AC Test Tube Portal feasting like lionesses on their carcass.
That white fluff ball back there are cotton fibers which they’ve pulled from the test
tubes, and it does seem like the ants are treating this entire area as a part of their nest. In fact,
the ants are treating the test tubes like extensions of their nest, as well,
as they all huddle inside napping, grooming themselves, and convening. But little do
these ants know, they’re about to get the ultimate home of their dreams in a moment.
They’re currently living in a crumpled up ball of paper towel,
which is an ok temporary home, but not a good long term home. You see these Polyrhachis ants
are known as lesser weaver ants, and they don’t nest underground like most ants. In fact,
they nest above ground in balls of not paper towel,
but mud and debris all glued together using silk spun from their larvae. Polyrhachis ants create
such epic debris and mud ball nests in nature, and this is one reason I’ve been dying to keep spiny
ants, because I wanted to see and watch the ants create their mud nests and catch it all on film!
Which brings me now to my epic plans for their housing. Guys,
I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve built a terrarium, so this was going to be awesome!
AC Family, behold! The empty glass shell that will contain the new world we’re about to build for our
beloved spiny ant colony. It’s a 20 gallon tank which I feel will be the perfect amount of space
for our colony of spiny ants to live in comfortably. Before we start creating our
ants’ new world, there was one important thing I needed to take care of first.
AC Family, presenting the magic sauce: This is fluon, also known as ptfe or insect-a-slip. This
cool stuff when painted on a flat surface dries and becomes super slippery to ants.
I’m going to need to apply a layer to the top part of the tank to keep our spiny ants from escaping.
Grabbing a little cup, and pouring in a little fluon, and now to apply it to the top of the tank.
Once the barrier completely hardens into an enamel it makes crossing impossible for ants,
which you guys will see later. It’s basically a type of liquid teflon,
and an ant keeper’s trick to keep ants inside their enclosures.
You can also use baby powder mixed with rubbing alcohol, as this is also effective
but baby powder needs to be continually applied every few months because it wears away quicker.
Alright, with the fluon dried, all was now set! It was time to start creating
the new world for our spiny ants! This is the fun part!
Here we go!
First, adding a gravel layer. This will act as a drainage layer for the terrarium
so it doesn’t get waterlogged and destroy the entire biological system of the terrarium.
I used to skip this drainage layer step in my terrariums in the past,
but I have found over the years of making terrariums that those terrariums with
drainage layers, lasted the longest and were the most successful in the long run.
Next, I added a layer of soil. Then, I added some rice husk. Rice husk not only makes
a great soil conditioner for plants, but seeing as these ants are Polyrhachis ants
which need debris to build their nests, I figured I should give the ants all the building material
they need, and in my mind rice husk would make an awesome debris material for their nest.
I also added some carbonized rice husk, which is basically burned rice husk which
not only adds nutrients to the soil for our plant life, but also acts are purifier
like carbon, and could also make a great nest building material for our spiny ants.
I mixed the three layers of soil and rice husk together.
And when it was all done, this is what our new spiny ant terrarium looked like!
AC Family, I your Creator of Worlds am pleased to present to you Polyrhaxia,
the lush rainforest floor terrarium which will become the future home of our spiny ants.
Do you like it? It’s a beautiful tropical forest floor corner of ferns, mosses, plants,
leaf litter, pebbles, rock, and driftwood.
Some of you may have just spotted the isopod, and indeed, to make these lands bioactive,
I did acquire some leaf litter and soils from our Isopodium, our isopod farm. These important
soil creatures which also include other tiny organisms like worms and springtails,
will be the pioneering generation of detritivores within these lands, which basically mean they will
help break down organic matter in the terrarium, and their poop will go on to nourish the plants.
They’re essentially like the biological clean up crew of Polyrhaxia
and are important players in the entire biological system.
So let me give you a quick tour of the territories before we go ahead and add the ants in. I’ve
adorned the lands with some princess ferns to give the territories a royal forest feel.
Small red nerve plants to give the lands a little pop of colour.
I’ve added some seiryu stone framed by beds of sphagnum moss. A pebbly path cuts through
the middle of the terrarium giving the lands a greater feeling of depth and separation.
And at the back, I’ve placed some beautiful driftwood which I think the ants will truly
love. Actually, my hopes was that the ants were going to build their nest balls of debris and mud
either here on that driftwood piece, as it’s got a tonne of little pockets and caverns that can
make good starting points for their nests, or here on this side, but the reality was
the spiny ants could be building their mud nests anywhere in Polyrhaxia.
Where do you guys think they’ll nest build! Leave your guesses in the comments.
Well AC Family, there was only one way to find out!
It was now time to add in the colony. Let’s do this!
I lay the colony at the foot of their lush new territories! Now at first,
I wasn’t so sure how I was going to transport the ants into the terrarium, but after considering all
options, I felt the safest way was to simply open up the jar and dump the entire colony,
paper towel ball, AC Test Tube Portal, Test tubes, and all directly into Polyrhaxia.
And that was exactly what I did. I opened the jar, and detached the AC Test Tube Portal,
placed it inside Polyrhaxia, turned the jar upside down and pulled the paper towel ball from within.
Into Polyrhaxia they went! The ants instantly went into hi-jinx and were biting my hands and
arms as I tapped the remaining ants inside the jar into the terrarium.
And done! And just like that, the colony was officially in!
The ants were clearly a bit dazed by the sudden crash of their home into some strange new world.
The top of the lands had some strange barrier that oop! Made any ant trying to cross it slip.
These lands were a very foreign place, indeed, but interesting to explore. The ants quickly
learned that the barrier was definitely not worth wasting their time trying to cross.
But the ants at ground level, stepping off their paper towel nest were soon pleasantly
surprised to discover that they had somehow entered a vast and truly magical place!
Many ants broke off from the colony to begin the exploration expeditions.
I loved watching the ants explore all parts of the driftwood, and the mosses. They climbed the ferns,
and look! It seemed some ants, including a male ant, were already beginning to show interest in
the driftwood areas in which I was hoping the ants would eventually decide to nest.
How awesome! Oh, I hoped they found the driftwood a suitable place to start building.
That would be super cool! For now, I assumed the ants would just be treating the paper towel ball
and the AC Test Tube portal as their nest areas for now, and look, I even see an ant
larva spinning silk on the test tube walls so that seems to be what is happening right now.
But I know in no time, one ant will find a dark place within Polyrhaxia an ideal place to start
building and it will start the chain reaction of convincing other ants to start the nest building
process, and when that time comes, they’ve got tonne of dirt and debris to work with.
Finally, as is tradition on this channel, when introducing an ant colony into a new home,
we offer a house warming gift. On this rock platform I placed a pre killed roach. I cut
it up to make it easier for the ants to get at its tasty innards, and at first the ants
didn’t seem interested in the roach, as they were more preoccupied with exploring for now,
but soon, the ants discovered our gift and began to feast.
This was all so satisfying right, guys? Now at the start of the video, I mentioned
that I’d be asking you guys a very important question regarding these ants and it’s this.
What should we name them? Now last week, you guys gave me a tonne of awesome name
suggestions for this colony, and your AC Senate and I have looked them over and have agreed on
our top 5 favourite name suggestions which I have placed under the pinned comment of this video.
Now to vote for your favourite name simply give a thumbs up on the name option you like the most,
or you can give more than one option a thumbs up if you can’t pick just one favourite.
The name option with the most number of likes will be the official name of our new spiny ant
colony! I can’t wait to see which one you guys vote for! Make sure to choose their name wisely.
Overall, this was such a successful colony introduction to their new terrarium.
I your Creator of Worlds must say, I’ve missed this terrarium building process a lot,
and I’m grateful to all of you for joining me today. And now, all the building was in
the hands of our spiny ants. As I watched the ants exploring their new home, I had so many questions:
Where were they going to choose to build their nest? Would it be in the driftwood to the right,
or the left? Or would they just build a mud ball all over their paper towel ball, or perhaps
around the AC test Tube Portal. How would the ants enjoy life in Polyrhaxia. Well, AC Family, I was
positive we were about to find out and discover the true joys of owning a huge spiny ant colony.
I couldn’t wait to see what was coming next in this continuing story of our beloved spiny ants!
It’s ant love forever!