I removed my growing baby crocodilian, Godzilla, a spectacled caiman from my giant rainforest vivarium, the only home he’s ever known. It was terrifying, but the story began as soon as he was rehomed. It was all part of a major renovation project my tropical vivarium and all its animals, plants, and fungi have needed for a long time. Check out how moving the apex predator out of the rainforest, led to the complete transformation of the entire ecosystem. Hope you enjoy Episode 11, Season 4 of my Ecosystem Vivarium Series. Ant love forever!

I Rehomed My Baby Crocodile to Revamp My Giant Rainforest Vivarium

I’m moving my baby croc named Godzilla out of Pandora, my 1,000-gallon cloud rainforest vivarium. Inside this tank is an entire ecosystem of plants, fungi, and creatures. But one of the rules for this ecosystem project was to periodically cycle through its apex predators, and Godzilla had served a full one-year term within this jungle paradise in which he grew up since he was just a little hatchling eating bugs. Today, he’s chomping on vertebrates like this mouse, so his time here is up.

But now for the hard part: moving Godzilla was not going to be easy. Pandora was the only home he’s ever known, and he definitely wasn’t about to leave without a fight. I’ve never before had to directly interact with our resident croc other than when training him to be okay with visually seeing me around the tank. But this time, I knew he wasn’t going to like this next intimate interaction very much. I approached Pandora with my heart beating loudly in my chest.

Godzilla, don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.

I opened the door to the tank and gripped onto my net. A kingdom larger than any space you’ve ever known awaits you, with lots of meat for you to eat.

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Hydroma, my neighboring tropical wetlands vivarium, was ready to welcome to its waters and lands a brand new predator to enter and integrate into its ecosystem. Schools of various fish, snails, and shrimp had no idea a predator was coming. I knew collecting and transporting Godzilla was not going to be easy. I know a lot of you AC Family who have been following the series have also been waiting for this day to come because most of you either hated him due to him causing the cycling out of some previously beloved sun skink lizards that used to live in Pandora, like Smaug, whom I spotted outside my home the other day, or just felt Godzilla didn’t belong in this rainforest in the first place, seeing as he would just eat everything. He is known, after all, as a keystone species, meaning his presence in an ecosystem disproportionately impacts the entire ecosystem and the species within it. For sure, removing him would cause a huge shift in Pandora’s ecosystem.

Here goes nothing. I went in with my net.

Godzilla immediately submerged, and then—whoa—he snapped, but suddenly and unexpectedly turned to crawl into a comfortable position right into the net. I gasped as I lifted the net without a single fight—no struggle, no snapping jaws. Good boy, Godzilla. After which, I proceeded to place him into his holding tank, where he slowly but surely swam out among the array of floating water lettuce. This is where he would have to be held for now, and I’ll explain why later.

But meanwhile, if you’ve been following the series, moving Godzilla was the first step to a major terraforming operation I had planned for Pandora. In nature, if a large predator like Godzilla were to have moved out of an area, it almost always meant that new animals would be moving in. And I had certain animals waiting in the wings I’ve been wanting to add to Pandora for a long time now. But before moving these new creatures in, I also wanted to do a landscape revamp. You see, in a true rainforest, the land is shaped by the elements—larger animals coming in to eat vegetation and trample on its soils, leaving waste behind, etc. But I recently realized that Pandora, being an enclosed ecosystem tank, wasn’t able to benefit from such major exterior forces coming in to transform the land little by little. So I needed to do a time-jump terraforming project where Pandora would be completely transformed to give way for the ecosystem to continue developing and changing as it would have had this been in the wild. And so the plan was for a hard reset—a complete landscape makeover—beginning with something that might upset some of you. Now, AC Family, take a deep breath. We began by draining the water. We’re saying goodbye to Pandora’s blackwater pond, Aqua Noctis. I know, I know. Let me explain my reasons. It’s actually three reasons:

1.Due to an issue with the back of the rock wall, which used to provide a structure for a waterfall, water was leaking and actually leaking outside the tank. It was a complicated situation that I was just so over with. For months now, the waterfall had been out of commission, with water just circulating round and round, and I just felt that…

2.Since Pandora would soon be connected via a glass bridge cave tunnel—the initial structure of which, by the way, is now being built—to Hydroma, the tropical wetlands vivarium, Pandora no longer needed its body of water. It would soon be receiving the greatest self-regulating body of water, and any rainforest animals wanting water beyond the automated rains could simply travel to Hydroma for a splash if desired. And finally…

3.In nature, small bodies of water quite often dry up, so I was okay with Aqua Noctis running dry.

After a lot of scraping of silicone and the breaking of the pond’s glass barrier, we then began to act like wild boar, rampaging in to destroy Pandora’s long-standing vegetation, pulling out vines and reshaping the soil. Doing this broke my heart, but in the year and a half since this vivarium has been in existence, I knew that had this been a true jungle wild space, herbivorous megafauna would have long taken advantage of this lush area. Godzilla watched attentively from a distance as his old home was being torn apart to smithereens. “What on earth are those humans doing?” he thought.

Creator of worlds, it’s going to rock your world with melodies and rhythms. Watch love on P.E., bringing joy and light like diamonds in a swirl, dancing through the…

Now, about the creatures currently in Pandora: it was actually a great time of the year to initiate this ecosystem terraformation event. You see, in Southeast Asia, where I live, we just reached our tropical summer, and during this period of excessive heat, many creatures actually retreat underground to enter a hibernation-type state and self-preserve until the rainy season arrives. So as we worked around the tank, we didn’t have to worry too much about disturbing too much life, nor about being too disturbed by the life, nor have a ton of life attempting to escape through the open doors as we worked. Regardless, we were vigilant and hyper-mindful of what creatures were out and about. And for those creatures we did see, it was sort of an all-out apocalypse for them.

Snap, our resident sun skink, was completely bewildered by the giant hands coming in to take the forest vegetation. He ran as far away from the action as he could. A canopy crab crawled away in the muddy mess, disgruntled that he had been awakened by some massive giants moving soil and décor around.

I also spotted a ton of these ants. Check them out—during the plant extraction, we unintentionally hit a nest and in a spot I completely didn’t expect. In the western region of Pandora’s soils, giant trap-jaw ants were in hiding, crawling all around with open jaws, ready to attack whatever had come to rake through their nest soils. We had to be extra careful to not put our bare hands around these powerful ants, as they pack quite the jaw bite as well as a very painful sting—speaking from experience.

I was, however, quite amazed to see the giant trap-jaws doing so well. You see these workers with lighter orangey heads? These are the youngest workers, having just emerged from their cocoons perhaps just a couple of days ago and are still hardening.

When I first introduced this colony into Pandora, the colony was so much smaller, and I wasn’t certain they would even survive, as I’ve never been able to keep this species alive in captivity for very long. Plus, my very first attempt failed due to an invasion of black crazy ants. But seeing them now, it was very clear that over the past six months, this giant trap-jaw ant colony had been successful at integrating into Pandora’s ecosystem, acquiring all the resources and food they needed to thrive.

Let’s hope they continue to do well in our rainforest.

Now, after working on removing the greater portion of the plants, I made sure to leave behind what herbivores do in nature—which is poop. Mixed directly into the soils from my pet goats and guinea pigs, Pandora’s soils had been regenerated with a ton of nutrients that the new plants will enjoy.

And when we were done, this was what Pandora looked like. Behold—Pandora in her half-transitional stage of the terraforming process. She’s not done. Now don’t be alarmed. I know—it’s so weird to see our once lush rainforest be like this. But I actually love the new shape and look, and as it is, it’s a better cohesive match to its sister vivarium, Hydroma’s landscape.

Now as you can see, we’ve kept the Hallelujah tree stump. But as for everything else, we’ve completely gutted everything out and did some remodeling. There were new rocks, a whole new driftwood tree here, and what was once our blackwater pond area was now full-out land and driftwood. Pandora’s rainforest floor had received quite the extension.

Now, we would continue proceeding with the rest of the terraforming process tomorrow with the addition of its new plants—and you guys will love it when it’s all done.

But though it looked rather bleak and lifeless right now, of course, life was still existent within. I spotted ants crawling all over the Hallelujah tree stump. The Chromatoblastas—the resident colony of acrobat ants—were out and exploring their newly altered kingdom. They, along with several other ants and termites, lived inside the wood—another reason I decided to keep the stump. And boy, were these acrobat ants both confused and thrilled to discover the strange, strange new lands.

They marched with their butts high in the air, ready to spray formic acid at any moment should the large alien hands come back.

🎵 [Music] 🎵

Now, I didn’t know it yet, but the acrobat ants would soon be letting me know of their true feelings about our terraforming project very soon.

Now guys, I want to show you this. So in the past, we’ve had issues with creatures—namely crickets—chewing the vines that were strung down from our attached canopy vivarium above, Arcadia, which I’ll be showing you next. So this time, we used actual wood to create the bridge vines that led up to Arcadia to ensure they remained a more permanent fixture through the glass bridge. I think it looks awesome! And no crickets will be able to destroy it. And it will certainly help animals climb up as well as head down the glass bridge.

And hey look—arachnophobes, look away! A juvenile huntsman spider! Love it! Man, this has to be the fifth or sixth generation of huntsman spiders now. Awesome to see that the species is doing so well in our rainforest.

By the way, the ancestor to this spider—our cute Lady Deathstrike plushie—is available now at AntsCanada.com, so own a memorable piece of our ecosystem in your home now.

Alright, now to climb up into the trees of Arcadia, our rainforest canopy vivarium. Brace yourselves for a bit of a surprise.

So, over the past few weeks, I watched as the larger, newer banyan tree I placed inside began to shed its leaves more and more. It’s now completely bare. Now, I figured this was just due to the seasonal summer die-off. But strangely, the other older banyan tree did not die and is still going strong with all its leaves still intact—but showing signs of going to sleep for the summer, as well as the ferns and philodendron.

So, I’m not sure what happened to this banyan, but I think I may remove it.

Regardless, Arcadia was still completely rustling with animal…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…life. An earwig in search of edibles. And hey—a dwarf ant! How cool! I thought the dwarf ants only lived in Pandora, but it seemed their mated queens managed to fly up the glass bridge to start colonies in the canopy. So great to see!

I spotted these awesome cone-shaped cocoons hanging from the ceiling. These were the cocoons of the once tiny bagworms we’ve been following in the canopy, which were soon going to give rise to new moths.

Our resident Asian longhorn beetle lay in rest. Evidence of spiders. A flat-backed millipede taking full advantage of the leaf fall. These millipedes are important detritivores—cool!

Large mushrooms growing from the wood. An isopod. Red ant. And this one found a shed spider skin worthy to take home to the nest for further consumption. A red mite, as well as lots and lots of Chromatoblastas frolicking these…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…treetops. And hey—they were moving some of the brood downstairs to the newly renovated rainforest floor.

I also spotted our tree frogs—Kermit and Miss Piggy—peeking out at me through the greenery.

Kermit. Miss Piggy. I have some great news for you both. Godzilla is gone now, so feel free to head on down to the new rainforest floor, because soon you’ll also be getting a huge wetlands in which to spawn your eggs. I know your mating season is coming up.

Kermit and Miss Piggy were now awakening from their day slumber and were getting ready to hunt. I waited several hours for nighttime to arrive to see what insects were on tonight’s menu. Guess what I saw…

Hey! It’s a bagworm moth! It seems the bagworm cocoons had already begun to hatch all around the canopy, and I watched as Kermit and Miss Piggy hunted the moths down.

Now there was also something quite special happening tonight. It seems conditions in the rainforest had signaled to the Chromatoblastas that it was time to initiate their special annual event. I noticed the colony seemed extra festive tonight. I followed the parade of ants and soon found out…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…why: a nuptial flight! Sweet! The Chromatoblastas were having a breeding event—something that happens once a year where they send out winged virgin males and queens to mate and found new colonies of their own within the rainforest. I suspect the remodeling of Pandora somehow triggered this flight, and it was just so beautiful to watch.

It warmed my heart to know that creatures of our canopy were indeed thriving, obtaining all they needed, entering new life stages, and founding new generations to further propel their species and all connected life into the future.

This, to me, was a clear sign of a successful ecosystem vivarium.

Arcadia was truly…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…alive.

The next day, Pandora’s terraformation event was complete, and the result was stunning.

Pandora, my my, do you look amazing! Beauty and plant diversity restored—and truly like some tropical jungle…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…garden.

I just love the look of the wood-like trees extending from its lush soils. And because the design was a bit more true to scale than before, it was actually super humbling to stand in front of the vivarium as I felt dwarfed by the grand elements of our newly revamped rainforest.

I adored the various new plants, the moss, how the rocks added new topography and levels to the landscape.

🎵 [Music] 🎵

I also noticed more prey creatures—like this roach—that had wandered down here from Arcadia, probably due to the new wooden vine bridge.

On the eastern end of Pandora, I spotted the Nomads—our super colony of gnome ants—trailing and transporting their brood to a new area of soil. I bet they were super excited about the extra soil space to conquer that used to be all pond water.

“Let’s file in quicker, lady! This is all free real estate now!”

A giant trap-jaw ant was exploring the new hunting grounds. I noticed that Snap had found a new favorite place to bask. When he was done, he descended down to ground level to begin hunting for the newly available Arcadian prey that he could smell wandering around.

Pandora had certainly undergone quite the glow-up from what it was before, and I knew some new stories awaited for us to watch unfold in its soils.

And you know what? Because I love the new look so much, I decided—heck—why not terraform Arcadia also?

So we did—breathing new, fresh life into our canopy as well so it would better match the aesthetic and style of the other vivaria. What an epic change! All three of our tropical vivaria—three ecological sisters of differing biomes—were soon about to become one once our cool cave tunnel bridge was complete, i.e., the highly anticipated Great Connection Event: the birth of our giant rainforest vivarium…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…Trinity.

Now, as for Godzilla—I’ll bet you guys thought he’d be moving into Hydroma. Well… he’s not moving out of here just yet.

I wanted to keep him here for the next little while to further socialize him and eventually get him used to handling. Here, he has less places to hide, and I can better hand-feed him and train him while he’s still small and manageable.

He’s actually loving his new home here—making full use of the water space, sleeping soundly among the floating lettuce with his cute nose breathing above water…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…enjoying the new views from the window, performing new enrichment activities like hunting for…

…goldfish.

But now you might be asking, “So then if Godzilla is staying here, what was the predator you mentioned, AntsCanada, that would be moving into Hydroma?”

Well…

AC…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

👏 [Applause] 👏

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…Family, I have a surprise for…

🎵 [Music] 🎵

…you.

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