Welcome! After months of planning and anticipation, I’ve built my second giant ecosystem vivarium to extend the biological world of my cloud rainforest, Pantdora, this time simulating a tree canopy—but a surprising volcanic eruption nearby shifted my plans.

After months of planning and anticipation, I’ve built my second giant ecosystem vivarium, which will be an extened biological world of my cloud rainforest vivarium, Pantdora, however this new vivarium will simulate a tree canopy. Building the structure for the tank was truly a mission, and I couldn’t wait to start landscaping, but a certain volcanic eruption event nearby had greatly altered my plans. Hope you enjoy this Season 2, Episode 11 of my Ecosystem Vivarium Series.

I Built My Next Giant Vivarium II and It’s Ready For Life

This is my 1000-gallon cloud rainforest vivarium, I call Pantdora, and its aim is to study the epic lives of the vast array of creatures like this new baby croc of ours in the pond, various plants, and fungi living together in a giant food web all within glass.

But this biologically intense rainforest ecosystem world is about to get a whole lot bigger. Behold, my Giant Ecosystem Vivarium II, officially built, attached, and now ready for life, but the biggest surprise of all is the first species of creature to go in, chosen by Mother Nature herself. Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel.

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It seemed like any ordinary night in the rainforest, and Godzilla, our new baby caiman, had awakened, breathing in the fresh humid night air. Something was different about this night, but he just couldn’t put a finger on it. Anyway, it was time to feed and the night was young, so when he was ready, staying true to his name, Godzilla swam to climb onto land to wreak his crocodilian brand of havoc onto the Pantdoran populations of delicious prey creatures.

Now, I can see how in the wild, these baby caimans are experts at being undetected. Can you spot our Godzilla here? I don’t know about you, but I’d totally step through this spot and not know a baby croc was at my toes. He’s right there, waiting in the mist, looking out into the forest in search of his first meal.

He’s had two weeks to master his routine in this rainforest, and you guys will love his new hunting ritual. It seems our caiman has spotted something. Caimans possess Müller glial cells in their eyes that contribute to excellent night vision. He spotted a large juvenile huntsman spider waiting in ambush under a leaf, for its prey to hopefully scurry by. On this night, meat was everywhere, from crickets to roaches, beetles, and more. But Godzilla knew better than to just burst out snapping his jaws everywhere. He knew that the best technique was to just stay in place and wait. Eventually, the meat would come to him, and he was right. Creatures were crawling in the foliage right next to him. A roach nymph crawled down the stem, not knowing a dragon was watching his every move, and then, Bam! Caught! He instantly scarfed it down. He had gotten good at swallowing these roaches, and that was quite yummy.

As he enjoyed the roach sliding into his belly, he began to wonder again what was so different about this particular night. Something about the air was different, and the overall ambient sound of the rainforest seemed different. Oh, bam! Second roach caught! Man, how I loved watching our caiman hunt and feed, as he would in the wild.

He didn’t know it yet, but he was right. Something in the rainforest had changed. The tree frogs of Pantdora could also sense there was something different about the forest on this night. Tree frogs, with their special skin, are sensitive to certain changes in the air, like humidity and air movement. They all agreed that tonight, the rainforest seemed a bit more airy, like their home had somehow opened up, but little did they know, their world was indeed a whole lot bigger.

It was the big day! The huge glass panel for our brand new Vivarium II had arrived. We’d been waiting weeks to finish off the construction of the next giant ecosystem vivarium, and I couldn’t believe the moment had come! Getting the huge glass piece up the stairs and into the Ant Room was such a mission!

The main framing of the second vivarium had already been built for weeks, and my team and I were just waiting for the glass to arrive. But I knew this would be the hardest part of the construction process of the vivarium, because today we were going to officially join Pantdora to the newly finished vivarium, through a glass bridge which would ascend upward from Pantdora through a glass floor cutout and connect directly to the new vivarium above, which would be turned into a canopy vivarium or the treetop layer of Pantdora, which I couldn’t wait to get started on, but of course, the structure had to be built first, and I had to make sure I oversaw every stage of this bridge construction, because it involved going into Pantdora and cutting out a gaping hole here! Of course, doing so would be challenging because of all the various creatures living inside. I knew we could pull it off, but we had to do it very carefully.

The team first began by building the framing of the new glass bridge. Then we proceeded to remove the slated panels of the top housing. Two panels would be removed for the bridge. Then it was time to remove some of the bars of the framing, and we did so through sawing. As I watched, I began to get butterflies. You know that feeling you get when you start to question whether or not this was the right choice, but it was actually too late now, as there was no going back? That’s what I felt at this point.

As the sawing took place, it shook the entire vivarium, and it made me feel even more nervous. Ahhh, please be careful, Sir! The team was very skilled, so I knew this build was in good hands. Connective joint structures were put in place.

The lighting had to be rearranged a bit, and then came the big operation.

We had to study the best place to cut. When Pantdora was first constructed, we never anticipated we’d ever be creating a connection to an upper vivarium, so in this case, there needed to be some pretty crazy modifications.

And then, after warning our foreman that he needed to be careful, and that there were giant huntsman spiders, lizards, ants, and even a baby croc in the vivarium, he bravely but carefully stepped into our rainforest. I held my breath and could hear my heart beating in my ears the whole time. First, he needed to secure brackets that would sandwich the edges of our glass bridge to the mesh. Then we went in to attach it securely to the framing of the glass bridge via rivets. It was imperative that no space would be left between the mesh and the framing of the bridge to ensure ants and the littlest of creatures don’t escape.

And then came the part I was most nervous about – cutting the mesh. He went in and began to cut away at the mesh. For this brief moment, Pantdora was open to the Ant Room. I watched the hole to ensure nothing got out. Next, we needed to silicone to ensure complete sealing of the brackets, mesh, and framing of the glass bridge, and when that was done, the team went in to install the front panel of the glass bridge. When that was in, the team went in to silicone the glass in place and before we knew it, just like that, our glass bridge connecting Pantdora below to its new world above, was officially complete, and we were so close now to the launch of Giant Vivarium II, but little did I know, as exciting as this new vivarium addition was, Mother Nature had some pretty major secret plans of her own.

On a nearby island, fire ants were busy with an operation. This is the Crimson Knights, my ravenous pet fire ant colony that I raised from just a single pregnant queen ant in a test tube over a year ago. Today, I gave them a very special gift. One of my adult scorpions had sadly passed away the other day, and so, I decided to give its body to the Crimson Knights to enjoy. They worked at burrowing into the dead scorpion, whom they would be bringing back to the nest piece by piece.

Now, this scorpion was a very special treat for them because I’ve been doing my best to limit their protein these past few months, so the colony didn’t grow out of control. For a while, they were completely getting out of hand and even attempting to break out of their setup a few times. The colony now was pretty massive, with over a million or more highly aggressive worker ants. I have found the best way to control the explosive growth of a fire ant colony is to limit their protein. I usually give them a lot of sugary food, a daily roach, and the odd chicken leg as a treat. This food amount seems to be a good ration, and I know the protein restriction is limiting the colony’s growth because if you look carefully at that fire ant swarm, you’ll notice that the colony has put a halt on producing super majors, those really big workers with huge heads. I was OK with this. The Crimson Knights were now at a good size, and I didn’t want them to grow any bigger. The fire ants had probably been using the protein I did give them to just produce these normal-sized workers, at least that was what I thought.

I watched the blazing trails of eagerly rushing fire ants as they carried food back to their nest, deep within their volcanic mountain called Volcania.

As the team continued to finish off the tank of our Giant Vivarium II, I couldn’t help but reflect on what an incredible and fulfilling journey it’s been. To think that what started as a crazy idea back 6 months ago to attempt a dream tank, as a way to celebrate reaching 5 million subs on this channel, eventually led us to building a second extension now, as we the AC Family get closer to the 6 million subs mark. It’s all truly mind-blowing. Thank you, guys! I couldn’t help but go back to all the amazing memories we experienced together watching Pantdora evolve over time. I remember first building Pantdora, the Ant War that happened between our late Marauder Ants and the random Fire Ants which have thankfully disappeared from the rainforest, due to not having a queen. I remember the joys of adding creatures to populate our vivarium, the time we first added our sun skink Smaug, who was a lot smaller when he first came to us. With a smile, I remembered when we stuck an endoscopic camera into the Hallelujah Tree Stump to spy on some invasive black crazy ants, the Dark Horde, who we also tried to battle with pitcher plants. I remembered our Green Reaper and the time we caught her molting at 5AM in the morning, and how we attempted to mate her, but instead, she ate the male. I’ll never forget releasing the hundreds of babies of our huntsman momma Lady Death Strike, and the whole open-door fiasco. Man, never gonna let that happen again!

In just the six months that we’ve been caring for Pantdora, we’ve learned so much together, experienced the rise and fall of empires, followed the lives of some of our most favorite characters, and watched the most beautiful of scenes unfold. Pantdora has so far been the most mind-blowing peek at the true lives of living things, and it’s been such a wild ride, and I knew in my heart that the fun and discovery had only just begun, especially now that we had Giant Vivarium II.

The tree frogs had emerged early, curious about all the commotion happening outside. The new glass floor cutout was installed, and the final step now was the installation of the front glass. And finally, after a crazy several weeks of waiting, our plans, which started out as a crazy idea on paper, were now manifested in the Ant Room as a reality. When the team was done, this was the final result of all the hard work.

Behold, the finished empty tank which will contain our future Giant Vivarium II. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? It’s about a foot taller than Pantdora, but lengthwise and thickness-wise it is the same. And just like Pantdora, it opens from the back so the front can be an unobstructed view, but instead of only two doors, for this design, I made sure the tank had all four back panels open up, to make working inside the tank easier. Of course, the top of the vivarium is mesh, and so is the side, which is also a door, for ultimate ventilation.

But the best was this opening, which leads down to the glass bridge. One side of the glass bridge is a mesh door, again for ventilation, but also for easy access to the bridge if needed. Right now, only the tree frogs, geckoes, ants, and huntsman spiders can climb this bridge, but I plan on putting branches and plants through this glass bridge to help creatures climb up and down.

The cool part about having the bridge pass through the glass floor is that if you look up from Pantdora, it literally is like looking up to the canopy of the forest. Looking down, it gives the illusion that we’re up in the trees gazing at the understory below.

One of the best parts about having this upper vivarium is that the additional space acts as a refugium, meaning it gives the prey animals that can access this area, a kind of safe haven away from ground-dwelling predators so they can continue breeding and supplying food to the predators in the rainforest’s understory below. I do plan on creating a lot of hiding spots for the creatures up here, as well. With the added space, creatures would be able to spread out a lot more, with fewer restrictions when establishing territories. And with it being a canopy vivarium, arboreal creatures like tree frogs, and the upcoming weaver ant supercolony I’m working on, that prefer occupying the upper levels of a rainforest, would have much more area now to do their thing. You see, in Pantdora, the canopy area is limited to just the top two feet of the tank. Now, the arboreal creatures had over 7 feet of living space in which to play. Overall, our Giant Vivarium II will benefit our ecosystem and help it thrive even more.

I just couldn’t wait to get started on finally landscaping and decorating this new Giant Vivarium II, but before all of that craziness, there was one thing I really needed to do first. One of the problems I experienced with the first vivarium was that it wasn’t sealed watertight. There were leaks. So, this time, I made sure to do a water test and filled the lower portion with water to check for leaks just in case. It’s been water testing for the past two hours, and so far so good. No leaks. I would need to leave the water overnight to be absolutely sure. Oh yeah, can’t forget to plug up the bridge for now. I’ll unplug this after I’ve completed landscaping and the animals are ready to enjoy the new space.

Downstairs, I noticed the frogs were still out early despite the workers having been gone for hours. That’s funny, I wonder what’s gotten into the frogs. I then spotted this. Hey, that’s a male ant on the glass. Guess it must have broken into the Ant Room from outside. And then I spotted this. A queen alate? A fire ant queen alate! What a coincidence, I…

Hang on… Another male. More males… and that’s when I began to realize what was actually happening here.

I followed the swarm towards Volcania, and my heart dropped to my stomach when I saw this.

Oh Lord! The Crimson Knights were having a nuptial flight!

I had to act quickly. They’re attracted to the lights! I moved my large lamp and fixated it over Volcania so the alates would fly to it and fall back in. Done! I now needed to shut off all lights in the Ant Room!

Oh no… The Vivarium…! How long have they been flying?!

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