In today’s episode, I collaborate with Tanner from the channel Serpadesign, and engage in the ultimate terrarium-making challenge. Tanner’s challenge for me was to attempt to create an entire terrarium in a bottle, and I even had the guts to up the challenge by making it an ant farm terrarium in a bottle. Check out how hard it was to make!

Making the Ultimate ANT FARM TERRARIUM in a Bottle | Terrarium Challenge feat. Serpadesign

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been pretty obsessed with vivarium-making! Together, we’ve created some gorgeous setups, and each one pushes my terrarium-building skills a little bit harder. This week, I’m set to try something I’ve never truly done before. In my mind, I knew it was going to be hard, but I would soon realize just how hard it would be! AC Family, in today’s video, fellow nature lover and my favorite terrarium-maker on YouTube, Tanner from the channel SerpaDesign, and I engage in the ultimate terrarium-making challenge. And his challenge for me? To create a terrarium in a bottle! So, I had a cool plan and accepted the challenge to make the ultimate terrarium in a bottle, which would also house a colony of ants. Keep on watching until the very end to see how I created the ultimate ant terrarium in a bottle, as well as a special announcement that you might like to be a part of once it’s done!

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One of my favorite things to do during my day is step into my Ant Room and gaze for hours into the various big, small, multi-species, and simple homes of our ants and other animals. Building terrariums is something I’ve been doing since I was just a little kid, and I love surfing YouTube for terrarium-related videos. That was how I came to meet a friend whose terrarium videos are just exceptional! AC Family, meet Tanner from the channel SerpaDesign! He’s made some really awesome terrariums and paludariums, which house aquatic and terrestrial creatures. He makes some of the most gorgeous builds on the platform, in my opinion. So a few weeks ago, SerpaDesign and I decided that we’d have a cool holiday collab of sorts. We decided we’d embark on the ultimate terrarium-making challenge! The rules were simple—we challenge each other to design a terrarium with parameters of our choice. And so, here was SerpaDesign’s terrarium challenge for me.

“What’s up, AC Family! Tanner of SerpaDesign here, and my challenge for AntsCanada is to make a terrarium in a bottle with a small opening. This might seem like an easy task if you’re used to my builds. However, keep in mind that I have a toolbox full of utensils that help me work in less-than-ideal conditions. Plus, I have yet to see AntsCanada make anything on this small of a scale or in a container like this. All things considered, I think this could be a real challenge! I’m excited to see how he works through the build and how inventive he can be. Best of luck!”

Thanks, SerpaDesign! Interesting choice! At first, in my mind, I felt the challenge was fairly easy. I mean, how hard could sticking a few things into a bottle really be, right? In fact, I figured I’d up the challenge and make my terrarium-in-a-bottle suitable for an ant colony to live in as well! Little did I know, I was up for one of the hardest terrarium builds of my life. Let’s get started!

Presenting to you, the glass bottle. It was the only glass bottle I could find in my area that would make a suitable terrarium, whose dimensions were pre-approved by SerpaDesign. It was a sleek bottle, with nice curves and a beautiful wooden base. I envisioned a lush terrascape inside it, with some ants frolicking around. My work now was to make the ant terrarium I saw in my mind come to life in this bottle. I realized the most obvious challenge was this bottle opening, which could barely fit my hand in. I knew this challenge would take some improvisation and some tool use.

Now, here were the other components I’d be needing for this ant terrarium-in-a-bottle build: coarse gravel for drainage, activated carbon, coco fiber, organic potting soil, lava rocks, fine sand, a moss blend of willow moss, Java moss, and Christmas moss, some driftwood pieces, a patch of Hydrocotyle tripartita, some Peperomia plants, another species of Peperomia, ivy plant, and nerve plants. There you have it, all the materials we needed for this build.

Let’s begin! First, I added the gravel. I tried to do it carefully, so the glass wouldn’t break. I had to use my hands to guide the gravel in so I had better control. There! We now have a drainage layer, and I’ll explain how this all works in a bit. Next, I added some activated carbon to ensure that the water falling into the drainage layer will be free from toxic metals or other harmful chemicals that might threaten the life inside the bottle terrarium. The way this will work is that water dripping down these two layers will eventually upcycle upwards through capillary action, evaporate from the soil surface, condense on the glass walls, and then drip back into the soil—only to end up passing the carbon and into the gravel drainage layer again. That is how the water cycle in a bottle terrarium works.

Now, to add soil, we bring in the Nucleus. Digging deep to get the most nutrient-rich cast from our worms. That’s a good amount of earthworms there, too! Next, I added coco fiber, which is nice and fluffy and water absorbent. It will provide good aeration to the roots of the plants to be added later. I also added organic potting soil, spreading it down and mixing it with the other soil types here. Notice that I am adding some dimension to this by building low in the front and high at the back. It will make for great viewing later. I have to admit though, the narrow mouth of this bottle was already starting to be difficult to work with. I would soon realize that the more I added things into the bottle, the harder it would become. Just watch!

Alright, now it’s time to add the plants. First, I will be adding the Peperomia plant because they’re the biggest and will be the feature plant. Ah! And here, ladies and gentlemen, was when I realized how hard it was to manage these small plants inside the bottle with just my fingers. Okay, let me try to use my tweezers. Here’s another one. Oh man! How does SerpaDesign do this?! It’s really difficult! Here’s another Peperomia variety. Now, I add some ivy, just to frame the entire thing from the sides. Here’s one more to the other side. Also, some vein plants. Now it’s time to add the rocks. I like to use rocks strategically as anchors of newly planted plants, and I definitely would be needing them here. Adding the lava rocks. Some contortion is needed, I must say. I’ll also be adding the Hydrocotyle tripartita now and mixed moss.

Now, I envisioned creating a cool pathway running up the hill and into the distance, so I wanted to construct my pathway using some coarse, light-colored sand. But so it wouldn’t spill everywhere, I decided I’d use this vacuum nozzle as a funnel. Haha! Improvisation! There you go. It actually worked! To clean up the area, I used a simple paintbrush. I have seen SerpaDesign use a variety of different brushes in his videos, so I’m gonna do the same. Now, adding fine sand to give the pathway a smooth finish. The sand was wet, so I had to scoop it up and place it in like this. I decided I would use tweezers for this, and it was honestly like picking up rice with chopsticks! So hard! Patting down the sand area once more. There we go. Brushing it off again. Isn’t it really starting to come together, guys? It’s looking pretty cool so far, don’t you think? But wait until we add the ants in a bit.

I also added some decorative rocks. Man, talk about a time-consuming process. One thing’s for sure—I realized through all of this that small terrariums do not necessarily mean less work and effort, especially with a bottle terrarium! This project would have normally taken me 20-30 minutes to build had it been a normal rectangular terrarium. By now, I was clocking in at over 2 hours. Adding some driftwood. More moss to fill up space. Gotta give it a little water, and after almost 3 hours of work, here was the final product of the terrarium challenge. AC Family, behold. Our new bottle terrarium. So, what do you guys think? SerpaDesign? Did I do an okay job? I can safely say this was easily the most challenging terrarium build I’ve ever done, considering its size.

Alright, but this isn’t done yet. This won’t be an AC terrarium without some tenants—or should I say tenAnts! Hehe, okay, corny joke. So, I decided the ants that would move into this bottle terrarium would have to be ants that were a bit larger and were of the kind that can’t climb glass, for simplicity purposes, seeing as I also didn’t want to have to add a barrier of baby powder or Vaseline to the opening, which would be rendered ineffective once condensation built up anyway. And so, I decided I’d move in a hearty colony of trap-jaw ants! Let’s move them in. Now the problem was, the ant colony had some soil, so I needed to add them in without wrecking the setup. For that, I decided to use this plastic tube I had lying around, as a chute to lead the ants inside. And here they are. In they go. And now I just need to wait for them to dig a burrow downwards and discover their new home on their own. The ants have nowhere else to go but down, seeing as they can’t climb the smooth sides of the tube. A few minutes later, the trap-jaw ants were in, wandering their newly built terrarium. Have a look at them, guys. They looked just awesome in there! They scoured the lands, climbed the plants and rocks, and started to dig their nest. Also, as a cover, I have this wooden ball here to seal everything up. This also ensures nothing from the outside makes its way into this terrestrial ant garden paradise we’ve created.

And now for something special regarding this ant terrarium in a bottle. There’s a final detail to this challenge that I will share with you now. The trap-jaw ants looked amazing in their bottle terrarium and completely fit in. I couldn’t stop staring at them going about their various daily activities. As a house-warming gift, I left them this superworm here, which they were now happily devouring. What I quickly loved about this terrarium was that it was small and portable, and due to its round shape, allowed me 360-degree viewing. I could turn it around any way I wanted to watch the ants from all angles. I also gave them some sweet jelly. Just look at how their powerful mandibles cut through it. It’s so therapeutic watching them, wouldn’t you say?

And now for some good news to announce regarding this ant terrarium in a bottle. SerpaDesign and I agreed that our creations for this Terrarium-Making Challenge would be put up for auction to any of you guys watching, with 100% of the proceeds going towards a charity of our choice. In this spirit of giving, we wanted our terrarium-making challenge to be for charity. So, this is how it will work. If you would like to become the new owner of this ant terrarium in a bottle, email me with your donation amount at info@antscanada.com, and the highest bidder between now and Christmas can either pick this terrarium up (as I can’t possibly ship this in the mail) or, if you’re from another country, you could still be the owner of this terrarium. I’d just take care of it for you, film it for the channel if you like, and it can become a part of our Ant Room. As the new owner, you could also name the colony and the terrarium—like “Debrah’s Bottle Ant Garden” or “The John-Jaws” or whatever you might like. When you send your bid to my email, please indicate your location.

So, SerpaDesign decided that all the proceeds from this ant terrarium in a bottle we made together here would go to the Aquascape Foundation. Their mission is to create sustainable solutions for the worldwide water crisis and promote awareness of water as our most precious resource through environmental, educational, and philanthropic efforts. You can check out the charity at aquascapefoundation.org—a great cause!

And so, there you have it! I was super in love with this ant terrarium in a bottle and the fact that it was so hard to make made watching it afterwards so much more satisfying! It also gave me a whole newfound respect for the amazing work Tanner from SerpaDesign does. Again, be sure to check out his channel for great terrarium, paludarium, and vivarium ideas, as well as my ultimate terrarium-building challenge for him! I was super grateful for this learning experience and happy we could use our powers for some good. If you guys were to name this terrarium, what would you name it? Let me know in the comments section, and I hope you guys can participate and help out a great cause by sending in a bid. I am hoping to create more of these bottle ant terrariums in the future, as I have discovered it is a very unique, fun, and portable way to house ants, too! Do you guys think we should do this again, perhaps with a smaller bottle opening? Haha!

Thank you, AC Family, for watching, happy holidays, and I’ll see you again soon for another nature-filled video! It’s ant love forever! Alright, guys, a lot is coming up ahead going into Antiverse 2020, and we’ve been uploading two videos a week this month, so if you enjoyed this video, do subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon for notifications now, and choose ALL, so you get notified every time we release these high-quality nature videos. Also, please remember to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now! Just a reminder: I wanted to let everyone know that AntsCanada.com is still having its big AC annual holidays Promo: the 20-2020 sale. That’s 20% off all Hybrid Series ant farms and gear packs from now until January 2020, plus a free copy of our newly updated “Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook” right now at AntsCanada.com. Click the link in the description to get your AC ant farm today! AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here if you would like to watch extended play footage of the trap-jaw ants living in their new bottle terrarium, all to the sounds of some relaxing Christmas music. It’s super calming and therapeutic!

And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week. Last week, we asked: Why was I okay to handle this tarantula? Congratulations to Darren Bagley, who correctly answered: It was a calm species of tarantula. Congratulations to our winner—you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! In this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask: What is your favorite thing in the ant terrarium in a bottle we made? Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free e-book handbook from our shop! Hope you subscribe to our channel as we upload every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 AM EST. Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help us keep making more. It’s ant love forever!