Lighted LED Ant Habitat Kit with 25 Live Ants - Ant Terrarium Complete Set with Clear Nutrient Gel - Perfect for Learning and Fascinating Observation

Update #3It's been over 15 months! I still have 3 ants alive. They started dropping of food pretty quick around 14 months. These things are resilient. I still maintain the secret is air. They need air! And the occasional treat of sugar doesn't hurt.Update #2! It's been 10 months. We started with 30 ants. After ignoring them in their tube for 2 days, 3 died. Then 2 over Christmas break when things were busy and I went a few days without giving them air, one died I June when my husband forgot to give them air and one just died this week the day after we got hermit crabs. I think he was depressed and feeling replaced. But TEN MONTHS later, we still have 23 living ants. Just give them air, and not the little hole, take off the whole top for a few minutes every other day or so. They will live forever!Update! We received our ants in late November and as of mid may, we still have 25 ants alive and hours of fun. We lost three in the tube I ignored initially, then we lost two over Christmas because I was super busy and forgot to take the lid off for several days. YOU MUST take the lid off for several minutes every 2-3 days (as instructions state). The little hole is not big enough, they need oxygen (btw, blowing in it does not give oxygen). I think this is why our ants have lived for so long. Also, while it is against the rules, I occasionally give them crumbs of cookies. And yes, I did tape the lid closed with my little kids (though I am the only one who has so far knocked it over!). The ants do eventually stop digging so much and just hang out. Overall, we could not be happier about it and they have a huge Facebook following that I update periodically on my page. People love these guys.An ant saga.I've never had an ant farm, but I always thought they were cool and the leaf cutter ants at the Toledo zoo might be my favorite exhibit, so when tom suggested we get one for the kids and told me how much he liked his when he was a kid, I was on board.We decided to get one for Christmas. I found one online that was cheap and had good reviews and I ordered it. It came with live ants. It arrived and said open immediately. Oh crap. Giant red scary ants called Western Harvesters. Angry ants that have been shipped in a tube. I clearly did not think this through. The ants arrived on Thursday and I set them aside to pretend the problem didn't exist and make Tom deal with it. Then I forgot to tell him.Yesterday morning, I remembered and checked on them, but 3 of 30 had died (they were all alive when they arrived). I panicked. I decided to put them in their home of NASA (yes NASA, glad to see what my tax dollars are doing) invented ant goo which they can eat, drink and tunnel through and its translucent so you can see them. I guess the astronauts couldn't handle the sand farms where you have to feed and water them.The directions said in multiple places that the ants bite and sting, adult supervision, warning! If bitten, get medical care. This scared me as I was home alone and felt like I needed my own supervision.I continued to read. It said to put the ants in the fridge to subdue them. Weird, but ok. Then it said I could pour them in with the lid off or if there was a little hole in mine (and there is) to use paper to make a funnel and pour them in. This seemed safer. But I was so very wrong.I take them out of the fridge and reread the directions, perhaps too many times and the ants apparently were coming out of their subdued state. I pour them in my paper funnel...but guess what, ants can climb on paper, only half made it in! They smelled freedom and clung to the paper for dear life! They are climbing up the funnel, they are going to attack me!I put the paper and tube down and the ants start to scatter on my kitchen counter! I panic more, but now what! I have to catch all these ants one by one before they infest my home and escape the island counter! I start to catch them one by one and try to dump them in. I dropped so many and had to recatch them out of pure fear. I had to take the lid off at this point and the ones that are inside are trying to escape, now I have to keep knocking them back down. Oh no! They didn't all ever come out of the tube! More are escaping to the counter! Little bastards are super fast and scary as hell!I finally get what I hope is all of them. I put the lid on and make myself a stiff drink (well, I wanted to, but it's 9am). I've been traumatized. I'm so glad the kids weren't here to see my epic failure. All day I feel ants crawling on me. It's horrifying.At last the family is all home and we show the ants to the kids. They weren't doing much except trying to desperately escape their new prison and then having group ant meetings where they were either in a massage circle or plotting my demise.They finally started tunneling last night. They haven't totally given up and trying to use all their ant might to push the top off, but are now trying a new plan to dig down to freedom.I tried to remove the dead ants with tweezers but a few limbs were too hard to get. They keep moving them around making little ant limb piles. It's creepy. I haven't decided who the leader is, but the boy ants are named Bob and the girl ants are Sophia. It's anyone's guess how many boys and girls there are.So here we are. Day 2 in the goo. We didn't lose any comrades over night. So far so good. We are supposed to open the lid every few days so they can get fresh air...that's now a tom job because there's no way I'm opening it again. They know immediately when you open the lid, drop everything they are doing and run towards freedom, ready to battle!And as for the kids, well they couldn't really care less. Tom and I are enjoying the ants much more. Of course I won't let the kids too close without tons of supervision because I have nightmares of them opening the lid to get a better look or knocking it over.Now we watch and enjoy the relaxing activity of owning an ant farm. I'll be drinking in the bedroom and looking for Xanax.

The first time they sent the product, the gel was very low in the container and the ants could not tunnel in it, even though I poked the required holes. The second one they sent lasted for about 3 weeks and then got moldy just like the first one even though we lifted the lid once a week to add air and kept it away from sunlight. At least with the second one, the ants tunneled and it was fascinating for the first couple of weeks. Maybe we were just unlucky, I don't know.

The farm and ant package arrived yesterday, this would be my first contact ever with an ant farm; temperature outside has been in the 70s to low 80s in the early fall here in the Eastern US, I believe this to probably be an ideal temperature and time of year to do this, as the ant farm seems to be doing quite well.The package arrived with both the farm and the ants, as advertised. (Not sure if this is common, or if the seller I bought this from does this special; it sounds like these ant farms usually ship only the farm, and the ants typically have to be ordered as a separate step. I liked that they shipped together, as this saved a lot of hassle.) The farm was just about the size I expected, but looks smaller in person than it does in photos on websites - it's actually just about the same size as a typical paperback book.Be sure to read the directions for both the ants and the farm carefully, before starting, and at logical stopping points after starting while you wait (such as while waiting for ants to chill in the refrigerator) - the instructions on the tube of ants are useful, but wherever the instructions differ, the farm's instructions should trump the instructions that came with the ants. (In other words, the instructions taped to the tube of ants said to feed the ants occasionally with a little food and water, but the farm says this is not necessary, as the ants get food and water from the gel - it's only necessary to feed and water the ants if you have a farm that uses sand instead of gel.)Some models of ant farm similar to this one seem to have foam seals on the lid, which ants can chew through, causing problems, but this one has a solid plastic lid which fits snugly into the farm, and ants seem to be staying securely in the farm. I've seen some folks complain about ants being able to escape through the tiny hole in the vent cap in the lid, but they seemed to have stocked the farm with very tiny ants from their back yard, as the Harvester ants which shipped with this farm, though not especially large by ant standards in this part of the country, seem to be too large to squeeze through the vent. Some reviews of some models of gel ant farms complain that the gel is too tough for ants to tunnel in, or that the gel is too soggy and drowns ants, or that the gel pulled away from the walls of the farm in some way, but I experienced none of these problems; nevertheless it's probably a good idea to inspect the gel carefully for defects before introducing the ants.I opened the package, immediately put the test tube of ants in the refrigerator for several minutes (about 6 or 7 minutes) while I opened the farm, and poked four 1" holes evenly spaced in the gel at gentle angles with the small straw included in the package (check the package carefully for this straw, as it's hard to see). The straw seemed to scoop a little of the gel out with it when removed from the gel, though it was hard to see the gel, which seems to be desirable as it leaves starter holes for the ants to begin tunneling into.As soon as the holes were poked, I set the lid at an angle on top of the farm, removed the ants from the refrigerator, gently shook the ants to the bottom of the tube, removed the stopper from the tube, and tapped the tube gently against the inside of the farm to shake the ants onto the gel. This allowed just enough time for me to finish shaking the ants (and a small orange stick included in the tube, presumably food) into the farm, and get the lid on - the ants were sluggish at first, but quickly warmed up - those little guys move FAST once they warm up, and they were already scurrying around exploring their new home and looking for people to bite only moments after the lid was secure!Note that the stopper on the tube of ants is fairly snug - it requires a little strength to open, and open carefully - there might be some danger of someone trying to open the stopper, and shaking ants across the room when the lid suddenly pops free! Also, a few ants seemed to resist getting shaken out of the tube with the others, preferring to climb deeper into the tube to cling tight, looking for a way to get through the bottom of the tube and climb up a human hand... it took a little time to shake the last ants out of the tube. The little orange stick that was in the tube of ants had come to rest on top of an ant or two; they seemed to be tolerating being pinned underneath well enough, but I had no intention of leaving them there, so I set the farm in the refrigerator for a handful of minutes while I found some long tweezers and reviewed the instructions again, then got the farm out of the refrigerator, carefully removed the lid and set it sideways on top of the farm, and fished the stick out of the farm, carefully tapping one sluggish ant clinging to the stick and giving me the ant evil-eye free; she was stubborn, but finally dropped free into the farm, allowing me to close the lid moments after the warmed-up ants began scurrying up the sides of the farm - a close call! Discard the little orange stick, if one comes in the ant tube; it doesn't seem to be needed for anything. (For best results, I recommend that a patient adult with a good eye for detail add the ants to the farm and do anything that involves opening the lid of the farm, and that the refrigeration trick be used: children might not have the patience or coordination to get things done successfully before the little critters escape from the farm!)I've heard that these ants usually take a day or two to get settled in and start digging tunnels and they don't like bright light and disturbances, so I took the farm, set it inside a small cardboard box, and put it in a dark corner away from any electrical appliances. By the time I went to sleep a few hours later, a few ants were already exploring the holes in the gel and had deepened one of them by a half-inch (most seemed content to huddle in a corner of the farm together, keeping warm and making ant plans, I guess), and by the time I woke up, they had one fairly elaborate tunnel dug deep into the gel, and had started a second one. They've been busily taking turns digging ever since, and as I write this, about 24 hours after introducing them to their new home, they've started expanding the third and fourth starter holes.I've seen reviews reporting all sorts of trouble with these sorts of ant farms, and worried a bit about how successful this would be; I don't know whether this particular brand and model works better than others, or if I happened to pick a winner, but everything seems to be working better than both the negative reviews and the manufacturer's instructions seemed to suggest, and I'm happy with the results so far.I have no idea what the blue gel is, I probably wouldn't eat it unless starvation were my only other option, and it certainly looks unnatural, but these Harvester ants seem perfectly happy (or at least as "happy" as any ant I've seen in the wild) to dig through, eat/drink, and live in the stuff; the live expectancy for healthy ants in this sort of farm seems to be 2-4 months, which is probably an extremely long life compared to wild ants; they're amazingly tough and adaptable creatures, I suppose that a weird clean blue gel is probably one of the healthier things ants have lived in over their millions of years of history on Earth.I've seen some reviews complain that the ants seem to be sluggish and do not move until the lid is opened, at which point they suddenly become active; from what I'm seeing, most of the ants are standing guard while others dig, and become aggressive and curious when their home is disturbed by people lifting the lid and changing the air and otherwise altering their environment. Otherwise, the ants seem to work at a steady, unhurried, and methodical pace, taking turns resting, performing guard duty, digging, or patrolling and scouting their environment. (Ants seem to have an amazing sense of space, and seem to have a pretty good idea of the limits of their little territory in the farm, the location and shape and size of the tunnels and their relationship to each other, and so on; the structure of their tunnels seems to have some sort of rhyme and reason to it that I can't detect, I guess it all follows some kind of ant-logic. It seems like once the ants had a good look around the ant farm when they were first added, they all just picked a corner near the first tunnel they started working on, and set up ant-camp with what seems like a fairly structured job routine, which again follows some sort of alien ant-logic that I can't quite puzzle out.)I do kind of wish that I'd had an opportunity to grow a couple plants in the gel, to help recycle some of the air in there and because it seems like something green would be a nice addition to the farm. Perhaps I'll try that after this batch of ants runs its inevitable course (they should die out in a couple months, without a queen to lay eggs to perpetuate the nest); it seems from my research that there are some small plants that flourish in shade living side-by-side with ants, who protect the plants and have evolved to help them grow (such as the symbiotic relationship known as "Myrmecochory", which Harvester ants seem to enjoy).Based on my experience so far, my advice for best success: 1) Comfortably cool weather in Autumn seems to be a great time to order this product in a temperate climate. 2) Chilling (but not freezing) the ants in the refrigerator helps a lot with keeping them manageable when you transfer them to the farm, and when you need to open the lid for any reason, otherwise they're very likely to scurry up the walls and escape. 3) Be sure to poke some short tunnels into the gel for the ants to start tunneling with; the ants might be able to creep down vertical tunnels, but I think they liked the more gentle angles I used instead. 4) Let the ants do their thing undisturbed in a dark area, away from electronics and other appliances and away from electrical outlets; I don't know how sensitive the little guys are to electrical currents, but they seemed to be happiest away from electricity and light. 5) No need to feed or water ants if they're living in that weird blue gel, and because there's a vent hole and a lot of air space in the farm there's no need to introduce fresh air into the farm more than once every few days.In any case, 24 hours after this ant-farm was started, it seems to be off to a successful and healthy start, and after starting this hobby on a whim, I find myself now quite impressed and fascinated by the little creatures. As a first-timer, I've had no problems at all with this ant farm, and the product seems to be everything it was advertised to be, at a fair enough price.