How To Care For Your Ants
When you have an ant farm, your responsibility doesn't stop at simply assembling the farm. Taking care of your ant farm is just as important as caring for your fish in an aquarium. There are certain steps you must take in order to consistently have healthy and happy ants. Although, there is a plus side of having to care for your ants, and this is it is extremely easy and hassle-free. There are several foundational tips that if you abide by, you will have healthy and very productive ants.
The first of these tips starts off from the moment you purchase your ant farms and ants. There are many various ways that you can put your ants into your ant farm, however, some of these methods can be harmful to the ants, and actually kill some of them. While some of the other methods can actually be harmful for you, and can lead to many escaping ants. The most popular way to put ants inside of the ant farm is to simply pour them in.
However, if you do this without the help of a sheet of paper or some other device, the ants can quickly change direction and end up on the floor or table. This is why the first step of putting your ants in the container, is to take a sheet of paper and roll it up into a tube. Once you have done this, take your ants and place them inside of your refrigerator for 3 to 5 minutes. This is very important because, if you're not aware, ants are cold blooded creatures, thus when they are cold they slow down. Having slower ants will allow you to safely put the ants inside of the ant farm, without worrying about some of them running up your arm or out of the tube. After the ants have been cooled off, take them out of the refrigerator and place the paper-tube you previously made over the opening of the ant farm. Now, you simply pour your ants through the tube and into the ant farm. Without a half-hour or so, the ants will warm up to their natural body temperature and will run around like normal.
The next couple of tips have to do with the actual feeding and watering of your new ants. Many people are surprised when they find out that you must feed and water your ants, however, if you want healthy strong and entertaining ants, than you must feed and water them everyday. When you are going to water your ants, you need to first obtain a dropper. This is because ants only need a few drops of water everyday in order to hydrate them. Never put too much water inside of the ant farm that there is a pool of water on top of the sand. Just several drops of water each day is enough to give the ants the energy they need. If you really want happy and energetic ants, put a small dash of sugar into a teaspoon of water, and give this to the ants once a week. Ants love sugar, and it will give them an energy boost that will help them create lavish tunnels.
Feeding your ants really depends on the type of ants you have in your ant farm. However, the most common ant species you will have is the harvester ant. When you have a harvester ant, it is important to feed them foods that are solid, crunchy and never sticky. The best type of foods are celery, lettuce and any other type of vegetables and fruits. Make sure the food is cut down to very small pieces, and also make sure that you don't overfeed your ants. You only need to feed them a couple of pieces of food every two days. After the two days is up, and the food has not been completely eaten by the ants, make sure that you remove the uneaten food from the ant farm. This will help prevent any type of molding that may occur, which can be harmful to your ants.
