Welcome, AC Family! In this episode, witness the epic journey of stocking my 1,000-gallon rainforest vivarium, Pandora, with creatures and discover the shocking twists that follow as the ecosystem comes to life.

I created my dream tank, a 1000 gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, and constructing it has been quite a journey. It is fully stocked with tropical plants, automated climate control, and even some creatures that managed to sneak in through the terrarium decor. However, the goal of the vivarium experiment was to recreate and study a rainforest ecosystem so to complete the project, I needed to add more animals. Little did I know, doing so would amp up the biological action within the vivarium in a way that I could never have predicted. Hope you enjoy Part 6 of my ecosystem vivarium series.

I Added Animals Into My Giant Rainforest Vivarium

This is my grand 1,000-gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, which I’ve named Pandora. Beautiful and majestic, it stands with its stunning array of tropical plants and even a fully automated climate. It’s a personal project of mine with great scientific value, as my goal has been to recreate a real rainforest ecosystem within glass. And my, has it been an epic biological journey thus far. But the real action was just about to begin. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the big day when I could stock the vivarium with animals! That day has arrived. I call this monumental event “GAIA,” i.e., the Great Animal Integration Advent, where I would release an initial team of creatures to jumpstart the ecosystem. But little did I know, when I finally did fulfill my animal fantasies by adding in all the creatures, my seemingly fun experiment and rendezvous with Mother Nature would quickly turn into an eye-opening Pandora’s Box, and the sequence of events that occurred after throwing in a bunch of animals together in a vivarium shook me to the core.

This is the craziest story of what happened when I finally added animals into my ecosystem vivarium, Part 6 of my ecosystem vivarium series, when our rainforest vivarium Pandora officially becomes Mother Nature’s Game of Thrones, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel, and hit the BELL ICON. Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!

I approached Pandora overflowing with anticipation and a bit of nervousness. I opened the doors to the vivarium and looked around. I couldn’t believe the moment to add in more animals had come. I say “more animals” because, as shown in the last episode, I had already placed in a house gecko earlier that day as a test introduction. Just two days prior, I was surprised to discover that a large array of creatures had already taken up residence in the vivarium, introduced via the vivarium’s decor and plants. From spiders to termites to beetles, millipedes, a baby grasshopper, and colonies of ants that had begun to compete for resources and wage war against one another, these very primal lands we created were already teeming with life. But to effectively recreate a rainforest ecosystem within glass, I knew I needed the biodiversity saturation that exists in a real rainforest, and so my initial selection of animals were all waiting in their containers to be placed inside. AC Family, let’s do this.

First, I started with the largest group of animals I’d be placing in: detritivores. These creatures would work hard in the ecosystem to break down rotting vegetation and material. First up, isopods! Whether you call them rollie pollies, sowbugs, pillbugs, or potato bugs, these amazing crustaceans were my top choice for detritivores. I had several varieties. I placed them into Pandora one by one. Oreo Crumble, in you go! Red Panda in! Anemone, go! Murina, be free! Panda (I love their little panda eye spots), Red Koi in you go, Whiteout in, and Papaya. When they were all in, I marveled at the sight of all of them exploring their new forest floor. It was neat to see their different color patterns. There’s a red koi with a white out, and a papaya, and there’s an anemone getting butt-pushed, and another red koi running through. The isopods instantly went straight to work munching on decaying leaves and vegetation, just as I’d hoped they would. Yes, my beloved isopods, feed and go forth to multiply in these vast lands now yours to populate and live fruitfully.

Next, in this container, is one of the scariest, most disgusting creatures on Earth in my books, but also important detritivores in ecosystems: earthworms. Yuck! Oh man! I am so worm-phobic, it’s not even funny nor does it even make sense as they’re harmless. It slithered like a disgusting organ out of sight, thank goodness. I dropped several of these huge earthworms around Pandora, and they instantly burrowed into the ground. Go forth and consume organic material in Pandora, you dreadful creatures of the soil abyss. Their waste would also be excellent fertilizer for all the plants, but ugh! They give me the heebie-jeebies! I also added these cuties—not worms, but beetle grubs. Not sure what species they are, but they’re probably rhino beetles. As grubs, they feed on root systems and decaying wood, so they will have a great time maturing in Pandora’s soils before emerging as adult beetles above ground perhaps several weeks from now. Can’t wait for that to happen.

Up next, moving up the food chain, are semi-detritivores/herbivores. Roaches are some of the top players in forest ecosystems that fill this niche, helping in breaking down organic material and vegetation! These are Turkestan Roaches, and beside them, Dubia Roaches, some of my favorite feeders for insectivorous pets. These roaches breed very quickly and will eat a lot of vegetation and organic matter within the vivarium. In you go, my beloved roaches! Go forth and be fruitful! Pandora is yours to discover now. I also have one large momma. She is a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, also a tropical forest roach. She’s also pregnant, so she’ll be seeding a new generation of Madagascar hissers within the lands. Go forth, my lady! Enjoy your new home and seed it with thine offspring.

Oh, but the cockroach fun is not over yet, AC Family. I have left the coolest roaches for last. These are *Pseudoglomeris magnifica,* metallic emerald cockroaches. Look at them—they literally look like shiny jewels. Aren’t they stunning? These roaches love decaying material and wood and will make excellent players in our rainforest ecosystem. Now these are just youngsters. They will get bigger than this, but I think they win the award for most beautiful roaches in the world. They scuttled away to various parts of Pandora. It was then that it occurred to me that the roaches looked more like shiny beetles, which is possibly what these roaches are mimicking in the forests they are from, seeing as a lot of animals have a distaste for hard-to-eat beetles but love a juicy roach. Go forth, my shiny roach jewels! Hey, there’s our gecko!

Up next on the food chain are true herbivores, and for that, I have orthopterans! Basically the order of crickets, grasshoppers, and katydids. First up is this interesting-looking grasshopper. This is a slant-faced grasshopper, which gets its name from its elongated face, which you’ll see better in a bit. Let’s place you inside, little one. I prodded it with my finger, and it hopped, grabbing onto a vine. Great target accuracy! It swung on the vine like Tarzan! See its face? How funny, right? Next is this gorgeous big, brown lady. She is a brown leaf katydid and feeds on vegetation and tree material. She gets her name, of course, because her body looks like a dead leaf, allowing her to camouflage well among the foliage of a forest. Come with me, my fine Lady Katy! That’s her name. I opened her container and allowed her to crawl on my hand. What a giant! She then suddenly took a leap and landed right on the back of the Hallelujah Tree Stump. Against the wood, she looked right at home. Enjoy Pandora, my brown-leaf girl!

I had a normal green grasshopper. It crawled out of the container, and with a little tap on its butt, it jumped and landed on a far end asparagus fern. Finally, some of the noisiest of orthopterans: crickets! These are native forest crickets, and they’re also a favorite food for many insectivorous animals. They eat all kinds of things, from vegetation to decaying organic material to even other insects and each other. Crickets are savage, and I really wanted them to be part of Pandora, too. So I placed them in. Now, you might be wondering what that tub of soil is for? Well, that tub is full of eggs. If you fill a little container with moist soil and place it into a cricket enclosure, the females, with their long ovipositors, will almost immediately begin laying their eggs into it, as you can see them doing here. Those long ovipositors are used like needles, stabbed into the ground so the eggs can be buried at just the right depth. So I buried this cricket egg tub, so the next generation of crickets could be Pandora natives.

Alright, and now that all the herbivores were in, it was now time for what I’m sure a lot of you are waiting for. We’re moving up the food chain now to the predators. Arachnophobes, look away and just listen until I say it’s safe. Starting with this baby huntsman spider. Now, when I say baby, I mean baby. I also have an adult huntsman, which is an absolute monstrosity of a spider, but for now, I’ll be adding this baby. The moment I opened the container, it ran out and jumped for its dear life. Luckily, it jumped into the tank and not out of it. Based on the angle of the jump, it was about a fifty-fifty chance. I also placed in a gorgeous male jumping spider I found hopping around my home. Hi there, little guy. There are already a couple of jumping spiders in here. Hope you manage to find Eve. Good luck! After looking around, it attached a lifeline web and began to check out his new home.

OK, arachnophobes, you can look now. Now, along with the house gecko I added in earlier, these were all the lower-level predators I would be adding for now because I wanted the prey animals to start breeding and establish first before unleashing the higher-level predators/apex predators. Hang in there, my predatory beasts. You will be joining them soon. I would be coming back for them, starting with the ant colony… yes, I’ll be adding a stealthy predatory species of some very giant ants by the end of this video. You’ll see them soon. But the first phase of GAIA was complete. As the rains began to roll through, baptizing Pandora and all its new creatures with life-giving, invigorating waters, I closed the doors, feeling a sense of gratification and excitement to see how Pandora’s ecosystem would take shape thereafter. But little did I know, what would surprise me the most over the next couple of days was how many of these creatures would actually be dying at the mercy of Pandora’s now amped-up ecosystem.

Nothing could have prepared me for the chain of events that would ensue starting the first night after GAIA. It was the first night after GAIA, and at first glance, you wouldn’t suspect that Pandora was now hosting a new plethora of life forms. All was still, and the forest was placid. I would soon discover that these lands had truly transformed now into something different, taking on a whole new forest soul, upon closer inspection. The mist filled the late cool night air with humidity that enveloped the entire forest floor, creating the perfect haven for its quiet rainforest soil creatures. Have a look. The isopods were wide awake on this, their first night in Pandora, as they moved from place to place, feasting on the most delectable of decaying organic matter, mostly leaf litter laid out in abundance on the forest floor of Pandora. Cool to see the isopods enjoying the buffet. For the most part, right now, these isopods don’t have predators, which is as planned because I want them to establish a good colony first before I start placing in creatures that eat them, and it turns out they already were. See that baby? Shhh, it’s sleeping. I find the isopods to be really cute and almost alien or robotic-looking in anatomy. I love them as detritivores. The humid forest floor also offered a perfect environment for mushrooms that also fed on decaying matter, and a snail which slipped its way around, searching for tasty plants to munch on. This snail was probably also another one of those many creatures introduced from the plants.

Arachnophobes, look away again. A baby spider, also probably unknowingly introduced, crawled on its web, not noticing the huge huntsman, also a baby, that lay in ambush. The huntsman youngster had found the perfect location to catch the humidifying fog as it rolled through. I spotted a herd of termites moving in the distance, probably to forage for new wood. The resident orb-weaver spider’s wheel-shaped web gathered water droplets, creating a stunning artwork piece, signed by Mother Nature. The Madagascar Hissing Roach was climbing the side mesh in search of a suitable place to retire before sunrise. Up in the canopy, our brown leaf katydid was awake and feeding. It was eating vine material and skin but stopped when it saw I was filming. No need to be camera shy, my Lady Katy! Up on the vines, the marauder ants were trailing and busy at work. Surprisingly, the ants leave the katydid alone and don’t bother her as they crawl across the vines. The marauders, who had been up all night, were still up and about. They never seem to stop working. They had lots of prey animals to feast on now, and sure enough, I would discover that they’d be getting their fair share of the feast soon. But enemies were waiting on the sidelines, hoping to steal their share of Pandora’s now enriched resources.

On the western end of Pandora, up on the moss wall, an encampment had been cut out into the soils. The black crazy ant nest had been positioned right at one of the bromeliads. The site gave the black crazy ants the perfect vantage point to plan their next move within Pandora. And look! The colony was already producing males. See it, with wings? This black crazy ant colony surely had queens, too, and I say queens because black crazy ants are polygynous, which means their colonies possess many egg-laying queens. What makes things worse is the queens possess the ability to clone their previous ex-lovers, meaning their sons are genetic replicas of their previous mates with none of the queen’s DNA, so technically, these males can mate with their biological sisters, and there would be zero inbreeding happening. It’s a genetic hack and why this invasive species of ant has become a major pest in many parts of the world. This black crazy ant colony was about to explode in numbers, and it worried me greatly, especially because it looked to me like these black crazy ants were gearing up for something big. I wasn’t sure what yet, but little did I know, I was about to find out what these black crazy ants were secretly plotting. Anyway, I noticed they, too, were trailing across the upper vines. I could make out their signature crazy, sporadic movements. Like the Marauders, they also used the extensive vine network to access various parts of Pandora.

It seemed a lot of animals depended on these vines for both travel and sustenance, as I spotted a jumping spider stealthily traveling across hunting for its next meal. The vines themselves were now taking on a life of their own. Check out the new air roots, which the banyan vines were now sending out. Crazy to think that these vines were alive, and soon an entire banyan tree would be growing here. All parts of the vine were sending out these fresh pink air roots towards the ground. It made me a bit nervous, though, to know that the vines were cloning themselves into a tree because banyan trees are very powerful creatures and would surely burst out of my tank once it had a stronghold footing in the soils and decor. On the other hand, I was excited to have a true canopy with full-out leaves at the top of the tank, and look! In fact, the leaves have started to sprout! Super cool. The banyan tree had begun to make its presence known.

It was the first day after GAIA, and I spotted life in various unexpected corners of Pandora. Look! Our pretty house gecko, the first animal member to be intentionally placed into Pandora. Look at those beautiful wavy slit eyes! Judging from the slit, she was asleep now, as these geckos don’t have eyelids. The slits just kind of close when they sleep. She snoozed, hugging the driftwood. What’s cool about these house geckos is their species is almost entirely composed of females, and they end up laying eggs without having to mate, which hatch into more females. They are capable of a process called parthenogenesis, which is kind of like a type of cloning. I couldn’t wait for her to start laying eggs in Pandora. I’m sure she was enjoying all the new prey animals available to her now.

Speaking of prey animals, our herbivores were out and about once the sun was out. The metallic roaches were up and exploring Pandora with great curiosity. This roach explored the Hallelujah Tree Stump. I spotted another one climbing the vines by the pond. It feasted on the skin of the vines as highways of ants crawled by. I found it interesting that the marauders weren’t actively stalking and killing other insects like I thought they might. This metallic roach sure wasn’t worried. After all, it was a hard-armored beetle, right? Wink wink! Our green grasshopper was out to warm up and greet the morning sun. So was the slant-faced grasshopper. Cool to see it had chosen to pair itself with this philodendron, obscuring its form from predators. Great choice, wouldn’t you agree, AC Family? It looks like it’s part of the plant. The crickets were by far the most active of the herbivores, and I watched as this cricket grazed on the various mosses in search of the tastiest buds to munch on. She taste-tested different species of moss until she found the tastiest bunch that met her standards. She loved the flavor of this moss species. Nom nom nom nom. I noticed since adding these herbivores in that a few chunks had been taken out of various leaves all around Pandora. Perfect to see the herbivores were doing their thing. I wasn’t worried, though, because new plant growth was happening all over the territories. Various mini plants were sprouting from the soils everywhere—plants I personally didn’t plant, but that were also introduced unintentionally through the soils. In terms of the plants I did actually plant in Pandora, many had now begun to establish new root systems within the soil, and as I’d hoped, new growth was appearing everywhere.

Remember that tiny baby grasshopper from the last episode? I spotted him again, but this time he seemed bigger. They grow up so fast, don’t they? It was then that a movement caught my eye in the nearby driftwood. Oh man, the black crazy ants were trailing on the Hallelujah Tree Stump. What were they doing so close to the Marauders nest now? Look! There was the opening to the marauder nest, and just a few inches away, the black crazy ants were trailing, seemingly excited over something. I was certain these black crazy ants were surely up to something now. I wasn’t sure what they had planned, but it all felt very concerning. I tried to imagine what these black crazy ants might be up to, but was suddenly distracted when I stumbled upon a mass death at one end of Pandora.

Look. Drowned crickets. Many crickets had sadly drowned overnight, despite there being a lifesaving stick in the pond. I was afraid this pond might be a death trap for crickets and other insects. I’ll have to add something into these waters to eat these dead bodies once the waters have completed cycling in a couple more weeks. Any suggestions on what fish or other animals I could add to deal with drowned bodies? I left most of the bodies in the water, as they would help accelerate the cycling process to build up the bacteria in the filter that would help with neutralizing the water for aquatic life later, but I placed one of the cricket bodies on the rock shelf, and AC Family, soon enough, check out what that led to. It took 5 minutes for the marauders to come trailing out of their nest. Let’s follow it and keep your eye on that major! I love following marauder trails! And success! The marauders would be having a feast today on a cricket. I was sad that we lost a lot of adult crickets in one fell swoop due to the pond, but I knew more were on the way, and this was all part of the ecosystem doing its thing to achieve balance. But what I didn’t expect was who else I discovered would be losing their lives at the harsh hands of Pandora the next day.

The second night brought rains to Pandora’s territories. I loved how peaceful Pandora was every time it rained. This was one of my favorite views within this tank. There was something so magical about watching it storm within it. Therapeutic and calming, nature was truly amazing in these very serene and beautiful moments in Pandora, and it was an honor to experience it with you guys. The rains had caused the vines to really start growing. Look at the budding leaves now. By sunrise, behind this rock wall, I chuckled, spotting this Dubia Roach, who had tucked itself into the soft, giant mossy duvet behind the rocks, perfectly dry from the storms. Now that’s some 5-star accommodation! Look how comfy it looks! But sadly, it wasn’t all a bed of mosses for all the Pandoran creatures, as overnight more animals had lost their lives. A supermajor was making its way back to the nest along the hugely active marauder trail. Why were the supermajors dispatched? I soon found out why. Massive food catch coming through! The grasshopper had either died naturally or was seized by the ants and was now being hauled all the way home to the tree stump. Wow! This, AC Family, is another one of my ultimate favorite things to witness: watching a swarm of ants cooperatively carry a huge prey item back to their nest. Let’s just sit back for a moment and watch this awesome scene that happens every day for these ants in the wild but was now taking place here in Pandora for all of us to actually enjoy.

The ants rejoiced in a festive clamor as they paraded their new catch along their hunting trail, cut out in the soil. I couldn’t wait to see them lug this huge grasshopper up the wood. Remember that this grasshopper is many times the weight of these ants, so carrying it home was truly a mind-boggling feat, much like a bunch of humans carrying a bus home. A swarm of black crazy ants watched from the summit of the Hallelujah Tree Stump at the Marauders below. I assumed they were jealous of the marauders, but I would soon discover that jealousy wasn’t on their minds at all. The marauders had made their way to the foot of the stump now, and in an amazing display of strength and coordination, the ants began to lift the grasshopper carcass up the wood towards the opening of their nest. Wow! These ants were truly a colony of some muscle beasts! I loved every moment as they brought the grasshopper higher and higher up the wood! I was afraid they might lose their footing and drop it at any moment. I continued to watch with bated breath. And then finally, the ants managed to lug the huge grasshopper into the opening of their nest, and I burst out laughing as I spotted a Dubia Roach come rushing out from an upper opening, smelling death wafting from below it. It did not want to become the marauder’s next meal. It needed to find a mossy duvet somewhere.

But as awesome and fun as this moment was for the marauders, I couldn’t believe what I would be spotting next. With all this new food, no marauders had a reason to leave their nest, and their once very busy trails were now for the first time empty, which set up the perfect opportunity for the black team to make their next strategic chess move. Check! Some white sporadic movements caught my eye up the back of the Hallelujah Tree Stump. What is that? No way. My heart sank when I realized what was happening. The black crazy ants moved swiftly but silently, carrying their brood to the top of the Hallelujah Tree Stump, where they had found a darkened cavern somewhere to call their new home. Ahhh! The black crazy ants were moving into the stump, too? This was crazy! While the Marauders lived in the apartments below, the black crazy ants had claimed the penthouse suite. I wasn’t sure what to make of all this, but this strategic move by the black crazy ants was very worrying. Seeing all the brood also confirmed to me that indeed the colony had queens, and how smart of them to seize this opportunity when the marauders were busy preoccupied with their food. Would this lead to the demise of our Marauders and the sure victory of these invasive black crazy ants in the Great War of the ant superpowers?

I knew only time would tell, but Nature has a funny way of surprising you with her plans, and what ended up happening the next day was an even greater plot twist I could never have anticipated. The next day, the marauders were out trailing again, but when I discovered why, I felt so sad. A dead body lay at the foot of the stump. Upon closer inspection, I was heartbroken when I discovered that it was our house gecko. Oh no! She had died overnight. I doubt the ants would have been able to catch and kill her, so my guess was she had died of natural causes. The marauders began to delicately pick her body apart, piece by piece. They had already successfully begun to dissect her abdominal area. Looking at her eyes, I knew she was now at peace and had given up her life and body to the creatures of Pandora. The sight disturbed me, but I knew it was all part of the legendary circle of life, and a truth I had to be able to accept if a true ecosystem was what I wanted to achieve in these lands we created. In her memory, I released another house gecko into Pandora to take over her important place in the vivarium. When I looked up to our Banyan tree above, sprouting even greater than ever, I was reminded that new life needed energy to come into being and that in an ecosystem, energy came from sunlight but also at times needed to be borrowed from other life forms. In dying, our gecko, prey animals, and dead insects offered their life-giving energy to the Pandoran ecosystem so it could continue on to thrive. All of life on Earth was like this, and Pandora was just a microcosm of the huge biological tapestry to which we all belonged.

The next day, I was surprised to find that the huge bud of vine leaves I had watched grow over the past few days had been eaten, probably by our brown Lady Katy. Its remains were left on the forest floor for other animals to eat. Even the vines were lending themselves to the ecosystem, but no worries though, as a new sprout was on the way. I felt grateful to learn and witness all of this. Over the next few days, I monitored the activity of the black crazy ants, and surprisingly they didn’t attempt to go to war with the Marauders. In fact, it almost seemed as though the Marauders knew the black crazy ants were camped above them but didn’t care, and that the black crazy ants actually respected the space of the Marauders as they went on with their own business around Pandora. Could these two species of ants be allies? I wasn’t sure, but only time would tell. This made me realize that even invasives are just out there, trying to survive as best they can, and aren’t always plotting the demise of other similar species. It wasn’t the fault of invasives that they were so successful in the ecosystems they found themselves in. I realized invasives weren’t necessarily the ‘bad guys.’

And speaking of ants, several days after GAIA, I decided it was time to finally release into Pandora the ant colony I had waiting on the sidelines. Within this tub was a giant trap-jaw ant queen. They are called trap-jaw ants because of their huge jaws that open 180 degrees and snap shut with lightning force to capture and instantly kill any prey item to befall its jaws. This queen was caring for her initial brood pile of giant trap jaw ant workers. I placed her and her tub with an opening into Pandora, away from the Marauder and black crazy ants, so she could focus on rearing this first generation of workers to adulthood. She will need to hunt for small prey animals in Pandora and feed them to her larvae over the next few weeks. Meanwhile, I made sure to bury her right next to the cricket egg bed so that when they arrive, the queen will have a good supply of prey to feed to her young. It was all up to her now to survive the wilds of Pandora. Let’s hope she does, and we start to see giant trap-jaw ants wandering these soils.

But now that the initial team of animals and creatures I placed in had a week to settle in, I felt it was the perfect time to finally add one of our higher predators, an apex predator to patrol Pandora and do its important work at controlling populations of prey animals. I approached Pandora with my chosen apex predator and proceeded to release it into Pandora. My heart was racing as I laid its container down onto the soil. Come out, my beloved beast! Welcome to your new home. VOTE IN MY COMMUNITY TAB TO AFFECT THIS STORY!

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