My pet fire ant colony (the Phoenix Empire) is set to move into a massive terrarium, but I need your help to choose a diorama design. Today we vote and find out our favourite among 6 different dioramas suggested by you in the comments of last week’s video. Hope you enjoy today’s episode!

Choose a Diorama for an Ant Colony

Imagine creating a fantastic world, mini-sized on a human scale, but vast and expansive for a massive fire ant colony.

Well, today, all of you will help me construct such a fantastic world within this huge tank to become the new epic home for hundreds of thousands of fire ants.

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Guys, this is the first time I’ve done anything like this on the channel, and it surely is a collaboration I’m extremely excited about, where all of you guys watching at home will be able to take part and vote on a design for the future terrarium home of this massive colony of fire ants. So, stay tuned until the end, when we vote as a community to select an official design based on my top picks from your awesome suggestions from last week’s episode.

So if you’re just joining us, this here is the Phoenix Empire, a massive fire ant colony that we’ve raised on this channel since January this year, from just a pregnant queen ant with eggs, living in a test tube.

Over the past few months, we’ve watched the fire ant colony grow into a powerful superorganism with a growing army of fearless workers that sting and devour roaches, build cool tunnels for their brood, and carry out their various daily jobs within their intriguing and complex ant society—all inside their interconnected network of AC Ant Farms, which we’ve named the City of Ashes.

But as the fire ants continue to grow and expand at an astronomical rate, together, we felt it might be a good idea to move the growing colony out of their network of ant farms and into an official massive terrarium, which would then be their forever home.

But instead of me designing the terrarium myself, which is what I usually do, I wanted to try something really cool for the very first time on this channel. This time, I attempted to have all of you guys help me out with the designing of the Phoenix Empire’s future terrarium.

And so, last week, I gave you guys the power to choose from one of three worthy terrarium design layouts:

•#AmazonJungle, a replica of the Amazon Rainforest where fire ants originated from.

•#UrbanJungle, a recreation of a human city habitat, where one might find fire ants living today.

•#Diorama, a recreation of a miniature world where the fire ants could live, basically taking a huge chunk of landscape and shrinking it so it fits into a big tank.

And, I have to admit, the results shocked me!

Based on tens of thousands of your awesome votes, in third place was Amazon Jungle. I was surprised this placed third because I have found most people love seeing ants in naturalistic setups.

In second place was Urban Jungle. After thinking about it, it made sense that this was a popular choice because it’s never been done on the channel before, and it was also still an accurate representation of a fire ant’s natural habitat today since they’ve invaded human cities worldwide.

But guys, I think this shocked me the most!

By an utter landslide, #Diorama absolutely crushed in the votes!

In fact, true story, so many of you voted for #Diorama that it broke the counting app I was using to tally up the votes in the comments!

And so, you, the AC Council, had spoken.

It was loud and clear that you guys wanted the ants to move into a vast, miniature world—an epic diorama terrarium, like nothing we’ve ever done on this channel before.

AC Family, we’re now fire ant architects!

It’s time for us to proceed to Phase 2 of the Phoenix Empire’s terrarium construction and vote for an official diorama design.

This is where it’s going to get fun, guys!

A lot of you had some amazing suggestions in last week’s episode, and it was hard to narrow our options down to just a few. But I chose a total of six diorama designs that I felt were the most popular in the comments.

Now, have a listen to all six options and be sure to stay tuned for the explanation as to how exactly to cast a vote, seeing as YouTube has since removed the voting polls in cards, and the hashtag method we tried last week can apparently cause hashtag counter apps to crash! Haha!

Alright, guys, so here are our options for a fire ant diorama:

Option 1: The Avatar Floating Mountains

The Hallelujah Mountains from the movie Avatar are just iconic! Floating mountains of ancient rock suspended in the skies of the planet Pandora, connected by vines and covered in carpets of lush greenery and waterfalls.

If we go with this option, I foresee in my mind large rocks suspended by hidden wire, covered in green mosses to look like mountain vegetation, and entanglements of real wooden vines to connect the rocks.

I can try to construct the floating mountains in such a way that they are filled with rich soils in hopes that the fire ants will actually choose to nest in the mountains!

Imagine seeing swarms of fire ants pouring out of the floating mountains and traveling in trails across the connecting vines at feeding time!

Perhaps I could outfit a black light at the top of the terrarium and decorate the floor with glow-in-the-dark synthetic plants to tie in that entire aesthetic of Pandora.

Oh, that would be super cool!

Option 2: King Kong’s Tribal Kingdom of Skull Island

Skull Island from the movie King Kong had an iconic scene where the travelers come face-to-face with a huge tribe of natives, who lived in a vast kingdom constructed from stone and materials from the island.

For a tribal-themed diorama, my idea was to create a jungle tree and mountaintop tribal village, complete with huts, pillars of wood, rope bridges, temples, and gates.

I even already have a massive rock that looks like the skull of King Kong, which I’ve been saving for a potential future terrarium build, that I can incorporate into the diorama somehow.

One of the coolest things I’d like to add is a sacrificial platform to mimic that of the epic human sacrifice scene from the movie!

Imagine placing the colony’s feeder roaches onto this structure and watching the fire ants come swarming! That would be crazy!

Option 3: Castle Kingdom

For all you castle fans, I figured this diorama design might be pretty cool!

I foresee a network of Dark Castles, Lord of the Rings-style!

I can try to contact some miniature castle builders I know, who can construct the castles out of resin, and I can fill the castles with soil so the fire ants nest inside!

Wouldn’t it be awesome to see the Phoenix Empire residing in a dark and ash-colored castle, emerging in massive red swarms at feeding time?

I can even try to outfit the castle with little red lights so they glow through the windows.

The river which runs through the tank can be a sort of moat, with grand stone walls that border the kingdom!

Option 4: An Urban Metropolis

For those of you who might have voted #UrbanJungle in last week’s episode, perhaps this might be a worthy alternative!

We can recreate an actual human city with skyscrapers, buildings, parks, bridges, and streets.

Imagine the ants creating intricate trails through the streets and feeding in a restaurant building or collecting their sweets from a grocery store!

Option 5: Post-Apocalyptic World

For all you sci-fi fans, I think this might be a pretty cool choice for diorama!

Imagine a post-apocalyptic disaster area, with burnt ruins and abandoned scorched buildings.

This diorama might be a very symbolic or poetic choice as it would quite literally be the Phoenix Empire rising from the ashes every time the fire ants swarm above ground to feed.

I also foresee this diorama option to be the easiest to maintain, as the fire ants would be free to destroy, modify, or dirty up the set as much as they please, which we know the Phoenix Empire likes to do in their living space.

Option 6: Volcanic Archipelago

Imagine this, guys!

A chain of majestic and active giant volcanoes, surrounded by thick jungle scape and water, and when feeding time hits, from all the mouths of the volcanoes come pouring out, swarms of red fire ants, which from afar would look like streams of lava running down the sides of the volcanoes.

Tell me that doesn’t sound cool!

I plan on using real rocks to form the volcanic mountains and a variety of small bushy plants and mosses to form the jungle vegetation below.

I can try to outfit the volcanic craters with red lighting so they glow.

I feel the aesthetic of volcanoes and molten lava perfectly match the Phoenix Empire’s whole theme.

How to Vote

And so, these are our six diorama options to vote on.

Now guys, listen carefully, because here’s how to vote:

I’ve pinned in the comments section of this video a post for the official voting, and directly under it, I’ve replied with six other separate posts, each corresponding to our six diorama options.

Simply look for the option you’re voting for, and give that post a THUMBS UP to cast your vote.

The option with the most number of likes will win.

The great part about this voting system is that if you can’t decide on just one option, do feel free to thumbs up and vote for more than one option.

I also would love to hear your opinions as to why you chose the options that you did!

I’m dying to find out which diorama design you guys choose and will be checking the numbers frequently!

I’ll expect to officially start working on the diorama construction as soon as a winning option becomes clear in the votes.

Conclusion

We’re coming closer, guys, to that sweet and amazing moment our fire ants, that we’ve watched grow from just a humble ant family in a test tube to the powerful fiery empire they are today, finally take their place as the greatest ant colony in the Antiverse as they step into new uncharted lands, built by their special ant-loving guardians who are secretly looking out for them from around the world.

Thank you so much for watching and supporting the ants.

It’s ant love forever!

AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?

Be sure to vote and be part of these critical steps in our fire ants’ journey to moving into their new, collaborated diorama terrarium, a first on this channel!

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—because I think notifications are broken again.

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 Bonus Content

AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to hear my personal vote, my prediction as to which diorama option the majority of you guys will vote for, as well as my least favorite of the 6 diorama designs and an explanation why.

Go check it out!

Ant-Keeping Season Announcement

And guys, did you know that it’s anting season in the Northern Hemisphere?

You don’t even need to leave your home to start an ant colony!

You can catch pregnant queen ants from the safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open window starting this month!

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.

It’s ant love forever!