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Step-by-step instructions on how to buld a NxM" Wood Ant Terrarium or Habitat.

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Materials required

• 2 sheets of precut 1/16" or 1/18" double strength glass cut to NxM dimension you desire (I do not advise dimensions greater than 24"x24")
• Wood of at least N+M length + 1/8", width and height should be as large as the table saw can cut.
• 2" or more of Metal Tubing which has Outer Diameter(OD) of at least 1/16" less thickness than intended finished frame thickness.and a Inner diameter(ID) as large as possible but still retains good strength.
• Clear tubing which has (ID) roughly size or slightly smaller of the metal tubing OD.
• Wood sealer.
• Brush or method to apply sealer.
• Rubber bands or other joining mechanism to hold glass to inner frame.

Now what you have to do is figure out how many pieces from step 1 you will need to use to create at least N 7/64" slices providing for a 1/8" cut and allowing that you won't be able to cut the last 1/2-1" of material due to safety considerations. I only needed two pieces due to fact my glass was about 14x10 inches and my chosen cell size (CS) is 1 inch. At this point I used a my square to make 1 inch marks on each piece. If you are able to put all the pieces together and do the slot cuts on all of them at once this is preferred. Make sure to keep the pieces aligned at all times. Also make sure to make the cut slightly greater than TI/2. The other thing I note here is that I use a plane to reduce the thickness of what will become the matrix pieces in step 12. This assures that they will all fit nicely in the outter frame. Since it will be impossible to plae them after being cut into slices.

The picture illustrates how I set up the long frame pieces. Because the design calls for tight fitted frame joints this design requires that we leave extra length to provide some integrity to the subsequent joints which will be made.

At this point with the two frame ends cut from Step 7 above you now need to measure and cut the joining frame piece. Rather than do this by strict lengths (since the glass may not be exactly the measurements you asked for) as well as wood thickness. The point is that you will want to cut the piece long enough to sink about TI/2 into the two long frame elements which will be cut to accept the ends (Next two steps). Be sure to make it slightly longer since you can always carefully shorten it to make it fit..

Now that you have the tentatively cut side piece use the tends to mark and cut the slots. Do this very carefully while it is possible to fix if they are too large - it is preferred to make a cut which seats the 3rd frame piece very snugly. The two right angles and tight fit are designed to discourage ants from tunnelling out through the fram joints. In the images to the left you can see how I mark then cut and fit the joint. One thing to pay attention to is that you have the proper side UP when you make this measurement and cut.

Here you will repeat Step 6 above. But you must pay attention to the vertical as well as horizontal placement of the marks for the frame cuts. If your careful you'll end up with a nicely fitted frame that is precisely the size of your glass. But don't worry if the glass is slightly larger or smaller. One thing to check at this point is that the glass seals nicely on the frame. Cracks should between glass and wood should be minimal. I have a very small species in this type of terrarium (myrmicinae 2-3mm workers) and they havn't escaped yet. Though they are nibbling in places. Now you can proceed to making the internal grid and drilling holes attaching tubes.. Don't glue frame together yet (in fact you should not need to glue it)

Now this is a bit of a dangerous step. I personally used a guide piece to hold and guide the piece through the saw. Doing this kind of cut I had to remove my rip fence (dangerous and not recommended). The point is however you accomplish these cuts you want to make the matrix piece slices with a thickness which should be slightly less than the width of the slot cuts the saw blade made in Step 3. You can check this by taking one slice and sliding it into one of the matrix cuts - if it slides (should not have to force!!) - your thickness is good. I use a holding tool and a piece of wood to push stock through the saw. This is why I recommended having as thick a stock as possible to start to allow sufficient stock to make as many safe slices as possible from each slot cut piece. The first image shows how I removed my rip fence to make the 7/64" slice cuts. The second shows the slices I ended up with.

In this step I measure the internal width which should be close to N-2*(TI). Then I cut the N matrix xlice pieces above to just under this distance. In effect you are cutting the horizontal matrix pieces to length which will fit inside the terrarium. I place them inside the terrarium to make sure they will fit.

In this step we need to cut the passageways the ants are going to use to go from one chamber to the next. If you don't you will have matrix that has lots of chamgers the ants probably won't be able to use (the cuts can be made later - but it's preferred to do them now). Basically what I did was to make cuts in between the matrix slot cuts. I also held all the pieces together to do them all at once. This makes straight passageways in one direction. Do not do this for the vertical matrix pieces since I find that a more mazelike lenght of colony traversal is preferred by the ants - it makes them think the nest is bigger thank it really is.

This step you use the remaining ends of the pieces you cut in Step 9. This is precisely why we made N matrix slices and started with stock N+M+1/8" so that you will automatically have enough matrix xlices for both vertical and horizontal rungs. If you terrarium is not square you will have some pieces left over. I save these for future use. I also make sure they will fit in the terrarium and the height should be about M-2*(TI)..

Here you simply need to assemble the matrix slices. This can be tricky and becareful not to break them (if you do they should still work). The main issue is that if the thickness is too great it can make it difficult to assemble. If you force it (I specifically made one tight the first time) you'll end up with a curved matrix (due to joint spreading). But you want them to be a bit tight so the matrix has some integrity. If they are too thin you can use tissue to make the joints tighter (this is a hassle IMHO). If you don't like the matrix you can return to any left over pieces and do it again (why I usually have a bit extra - but I also plan on making a few of these).. To the left is the finished matrix inserted into the terrarium. The main reason I do this is to make sure that the resulting matrix thickness doesn't spread the glass. This shouldn't be a problem if in Step 3 you followed my instructions to plane what will be the matrix pieces a bit thinner than the pieces used for the frame edges.

At this point I looked at the connecting passageways and realized that I need to cut one other slot across horizontally. So with the matrix assembled with the table saw I carefully cut notches to allow full access to the vertical chambers.. One can use tissue to plug holes if you wish to make the matrix more maze like. Errors here - or broken pieces on the neds is not a problem..

When I got to this step I wanted to construct a slightly better system for connecting tubes. The main issue was that simply drilling holes and inserting the rubber tube means that the ID of the tube ends up being small, and there is issue of integrity of tube (staying in terrarium - one can glue I guess). So I decided to use short metal tubes seen at the left. This allows one to drill slightly smaller holes than one might require to use accomodate a tube. I used 1/4" OD tubing which has 7/64" ID - from a fuel overflow line on old car.. These I cut to TI+1/2*TI (about 5/8" in my case) so they stick out about as far as the tubing thick to allow for tubing to fit on. I also filed (I used a grinder) to taper one of the outter edges to allow for rubber tube to go on easier. In this image you can see that when one drills the holes in the frame one has to be careful. I actually broke a freme piece which I had to remake and redrill. The broken frame piece is shown in the imate - you can see how careful one has to be drilling the connectin holes..

All right you are basically finished. At this point you can take the 4 outer frame pieces and coat them with at least two coats of water protection material. I am using water based polyacrylic. Once this is done and it has had a couple days to dry you can then use wax to cover the metal connecting tubes and insert them - be very careful when doing this - if too tight carefully use the drill on the holes to clear out the excess sealer. If it is too tight it is possible to break the frame piece. I don't suggest gluing (it should not be necessary) - but this is possible. But at this point you are basically finished. What is left are some options. First I add cotton in a couple of the lower chambers - all connected together. I also get a syrenge and insert the needle through the frame (use a fine drill bit if needed to make tiny hole) The needle should be small enough so ants can't escape through the needle. I use the syrenge to add water to the inside of the terrarium which the cotton absorbs. The ants will probably distribute the cotton a bit - but I don't find this to be a problem. The pros of this setup is that glass cleaning is pretty easy by sliding one piece off and sliding the other on. Oh this reminds me. You need to devise a system to keep the glass tightly held to the frame. In my smaller terrariums I use rubber bands aroudn the sides. In one of this size I still havn't decided. I may simply cut a couple pieces of wood to use as clamps to lock the glass. If so I'll add instructions here.. But how you decide to hold the glass together is up to you at this point. I just wanted to put these up to show people what is possible.. The NeXT last image is one of my myrmicinae colony living in the first terrarium (died winter of 2001-2002 due to lack of moisture I suspect) of this type I made which is roughly 8.5x11". You can see the cotton wad, and the rubber bands to hold it together. Because of the death of the myrmicinae due to lack of moisture I've adopted a new Cotton Water Wicking system which should I get this wonderful species again I suspect will make them incredibly happy. Currently working well with many of my colonies now keeping innards moist. The last two pictures are of the latest incarnation of this terrarium. The first of those shows how the cotton lays at the top of the terrarium. The final one is my AC-12x12-W2 which can be purchased here So my final note here is to make sure you drill another tube hole to include another tube for some way to introduce water. I use the cotton wicking system. Truely though it works more like syphoning system (i.e. one has to make sure water level is slightly higher than terrarium AND make sure to only add water in small amounts as the syphon will suck it all down in time potentially causing a flood.

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