My Failed Biological Experiment

Now, sometimes things go perfectly as planned, or even better than we anticipated, but as you know, in the Antiverse, sometimes things go wrong. Completely wrong, and a disaster occurs that derails all the carefully laid plans. AC family, get ready. I have some news. It's about the Fire Nation. I'm sorry to announce that disaster has hit the Jungle of Fire and we have some serious problems to fix immediately! SUBSCRIBE to my channel and press the bell icon. Welcome to the AC family. Enjoy! The Fire Nation, they are voracious, dangerous, they kill and eat every living thing in their path, including my fingers and arms when I work in their kingdom, the Fire Jungle here.

But it looks like I'm planning to visit these territories, as I have some major repairs to make to resolve what turned out to be a

failed

experiment

. I'll explain everything to you, but wait until you see the adjustments and housing additions I end up making to help save the Jungle of Fire. So first things first. What happened here? It was time to assess the damage. AC family, three big problems! First, there has been some critical damage. If you watched last week's episode, I mentioned that our shelter has developed a leak somewhere, supposedly due to a crack that may have occurred in the bottom of the shelter as a result of the weight of the layer of water and gravel it was supporting, and This leak eventually caused a massive flood in the land area.

I connected the filter outlet tube to the waterfall so that the river water could continue to circulate normally. But look at the terrain! Completely waterlogged and of course the shelter that still housed cleaner plant life was completely drained of water. This was alarming to me at first, because if the queen of the Fire Nation, who we call Queen Solis, had not surfaced and drowned when the flood occurred, then it would mean certain death for the entire ant colony. , because Queen Solís is the only egg in the colony. -Laying queen! But I was a little relieved when some of you brought up a very good point: that these ants naturally deal with flash floods in their natural habitat, and we've even seen them do it in the past, so there was no need for fear.

And lo and behold, I finally saw this structure. A tall anthill of earth that they built above the flood water level, which ends just below this bromeliad that formed a botanical crown at the top of its majestic saving hill. Surely, Queen Solís and all her offspring were hidden, dry and safe, within this anthill shelter. I can't believe ants built this entire dirt castle while the flood was happening! If you think about it, it would be like a city of humans building a fortified building while a giant flood occurred. It's amazing that the Fire Nation was able to execute all of this just in time.

Alright, luckily it seemed like the colony was coping well with the flooding, but here was our second problem. You may remember from a previous video that this shelter was a separate body of water that we placed in the Fire Jungle to act as a living space for some beneficial housekeeping plants and a couple of exotic shrimp. This all-female, pregnant alien shrimp team was labeled "alien" because we weren't sure where they were from or their species identification. But these aliens had a dual purpose, as part of a big

biological

experiment

of ours: 1) They were supposed to release their newborn shrimp into the shelter, and these little shrimp were to be gradually sucked towards the waterfall, to fall into the river. and act as live food for our school of guppies, called the Guppy Gang.

There was also a pregnant alien shrimp placed directly in the river. And 2) This entire population of shrimp in the Jungle of Fire would join our Corydoras catfish, the White Tigers, as additional water-cleaning equipment. It was a

biological

experiment in which we had high hopes and it has been two months since we began preparation. But now with this flood, I had no idea where the shrimp were, or even if they had babies as planned. Had the two shrimp in the shelter died when all the water drained away? What happened to that shrimp we put in the river?

So many questions and I'll get to their answers in a moment. Because I want to inform you about our third problem. The school of gregarious guppies living in the river, which were supposed to feed on the shrimp babeis, had completely disappeared. That's how it is! The Guppy gang was nowhere to be seen. In fact, while I was traveling two months ago, my assistant who takes care of all the ant colonies started noticing that the Guppy Gang members were mysteriously disappearing one by one. He said he saw no evidence of a dead guppy body floating anywhere. They simply disappeared until there were none left.

And here we are now, a flood, no shrimp or guppies. So what he had to do first was scan the river for answers. The first thing I noticed was the Fire Nation taking advantage of all the vegetation cover on the surface of the water, as a sort of effective dock, to facilitate travel through the water. It looks like the ants here are trying to collect one of the White Tiger's food pellets that got stuck in a frog and didn't reach the bottom. Watch them reach for the fish ball. Now you have to remember that the water in this river is moving, so navigating these wetlands can be quite tricky.

The ants move cautiously, but some take a leap of faith and float, using the river's current to bite nearby frogs. What fun ants. However, I think your best bet to be safe is to follow the main path that leads to their nest. Now, even though the prolific floating plant life has proven beneficial to ants, over time it has completely surpassed the surface of the water and its roots have completely obscured a large portion of the aquatic space. I tried to look inside. The White Tigers seem to have done well in this crowded root forest, but what I was interested in knowing was whether our alien shrimp that was placed in this river was still alive somewhere here.

Could the two alien shrimp placed in the shelter still be alive as well, perhaps having migrated to the river before the flood? I think that once we remove all these floating plants, we can solve the mystery of what happened to our

failed

experiment. Then, AC Family came in! I worked fast! I removed a lot of water and frog lettuce. All of these floating plants were initially installed to help clean the river of its toxic nitrogenous compounds caused by ant garbage and fish waste, but since we now had about 7 guppies, there was less need to install them. around to clean.

I was more than happy to clear the area, mainly of the large water lettuce and the frog. And while I was at it, I also decided to give this towering arrow plant a good trim, as the sudden abundance of flood water caused it to really experience a growth spurt. I trimmed until finally the Fire Jungle looked like this. Ahhh much better. Look how clear that water looks now. And with the plants removed from the surface of the water, more light was able to reach the bottom of the river, which helped me detect this. AHA! An alien shrimp was alive!

I wonder if the other two were alive. I looked around and saw another one deep in the rock cave. Wow! It was big and I recognized it as one of the alien shrimp from the shelter! Amazing! This means that he managed to pass through one of the tubes that lead to the waterfall and the river. I wonder if her shelter mate followed her to the river too! Looking around us and yes! I saw the third and final alien shrimp and look, it has a lot of eggs. This had to be a second batch of eggs from the ones she had when we first got her!

Well, all three alien shrimp were alive, but I didn't see any shrimp around. What did this mean? Alright, AC family, are you prepared for what I deduced might have happened? So in the latest video featuring these shrimp, many of you posted some possible species IDs and based on your comments and further research, the best ID I chose was to the genus Macrobrachium, freshwater shrimp characterized by extreme enlargement of the second pair. of pereiopods. In other words, these shrimp have arms with elongated claws. I discovered that the Macrobrachium shrimp exists in the waters of many countries around the world, from the Indo-Pacific region to Africa, Asia, the Americas, and more.

But, AC Family understands this, I also discovered that many Macrobrachium require brackish water for the proper development of their shrimp, meaning they need some salt water for their babies to develop. This could be one reason why baby shrimp were not seen swimming anywhere, which after two months, one would expect to see after placing three pregnant shrimp with babies so developed and ready to emerge, they even had eyes! Another possibility is that these Macrobrachium shrimp are a species that does not need brackish water for their shrimp development, and while I was away, perhaps the shrimp released their shrimp into the water as planned and the guppies ate them all.

But at some point, I guess the Macrobrachium shrimp in the shelter decided to leave the shelter and migrate to the river, where they got this: they ate the Guppy gang! AC Family, it turns out that many Macrobrachium shrimp are very avid predators! MY GOD! Could these alien shrimp really be our Guppy Gang killers? That would explain why the guppies disappeared one by one without leaving a trace of a body floating anywhere! What do you think? For now, it seems to be the most likely scenario. But what I found interesting is that they didn't seem to touch or take advantage of the White Tigers.

Hmmm... My guess was that perhaps the tough, armored skin of our school of Corydoras catfish made them difficult prey for Macrobrachium shrimp. Thank God! So now I had to decide what we were going to do from here. Should I get rid of the shrimp completely and add more guppies? Well, actually, the reason I added guppies to the Fire Jungle in the first place was because I hoped they would eat some Fire Nation workers and act as a form of natural population control. But over the several months that the Fire Jungle has existed, I've discovered that the guppies don't care much about fire ants.

So, in effect, they were just beautiful creatures for the river, with no purpose in the system and, by the way, high producers of waste and toxic nitrogenous compounds. So while it was very sad that the Guppy Gang no longer existed, their absence eliminates much of the biowaste production, and well, ideally, we only want creatures in the Fire Jungle that in some way contribute to the general well-being of the community. the entire system and the capital organisms of the kingdom: the ants! Unfortunately, aesthetic beauty will not keep the system running, so I have decided not to add any more guppies to the river to replace Guppy Gang.

Sorry, Guppy Gang fans. We need to think about the Jungle of Fire as a whole. So what did I want to do? Well, since the Macrobrachium shrimp seemed to be doing well in the river at the moment in harmony with the white tigers, and seemed to be doing their job well keeping the river clean of debris and dead ants, I decided to give them a second chance to breed. I don't know if they ate their first round of babies or if they just didn't develop because they needed brackish water, but I decided that maybe having a colony of shrimp in these waters could help.

I decided to add two male and one more female Macrobrachium shrimp. Check out those super long arms on the males! The alpha males of this species have longer arms and, from what I've read, their social hierarchy is quite interesting. Apparently, there is only one alpha male in a group that possesses the longest arms, and once that male dies or is defeated in a battle by challenging males, the new alpha male's arms and body grow in size! If the Macrobrachium shrimp ends up reproducing and more shrimp begin to inhabit the river, we will be able to witness this orderly social structure much better.

But hey, if it's a species that requires brackish water to proliferate, then I guess we can wait until all these shrimp go extinct naturally and decide what we want to put in the river at that time. But for now, we couldn't add more fish since they would surely be prey for the shrimp, except... more white tigers. I also wanted to increase the number of White Tigers from 4 to 10 because Corydoras usually live in huge schools of hundreds of members. They have proven to be excellent at eating dead ants in water and have also shown that they can survive living near these Macrobrachium shrimp, so why notalso increase the White Tiger team?

Alright, AC family, okay? I think our females seem interested in their new guests. So first, after the temperature and drip acclimated the shrimp, I added the new shrimp to the river. The younger male began to walk away and explore his new home. And the alpha male, who by the way seemed to only have one long arm, headed straight towards the cave and, surprisingly, the female who was there before decided to stay out of her way. The new young female decided to simply explore the tangle of saggitaria leaves. It was very interesting to watch the new shrimp explore their new environment.

But what really interested me the most was this one-armed alpha male who clearly seemed to be looking for something, or maybe someone? Could I smell that there were females with eggs around? I watched him carefully as he sniffed around, apparently with intent. He actually had a nice dark blue color on his shell! The other male was already starting to feed on dead ants at the bottom of the river, which was a great sign! This younger male will supposedly keep his arm length until he becomes the alpha male shrimp, but until then he will stay away from the current armed alpha male.

Oops! It seems that he is even willing to give way to the White Tigers! Speaking of which, it's time to add the second installment of White Tigers. I released them into their new aquatic domain, and to my surprise I instantly started eating decaying ants! Perfect! With the addition of the new shrimp and White Tigers, there was one last thing left to fix, or just make an adjustment. I decided to keep the shelter, but instead turned it into a nest for the Fire Nation! I filled it with soil, and added some nervous plants, and so AC Family, today the Jungle of Fire looks like this.

Ahhhhh everything was so pleasing to the eye now. The shelter-turned-nesting area was surprisingly a success! The Fire Nation eagerly explored the new means of excavation. They climbed the new nerve plants with joy and enthusiasm, and this new nesting area, deep and elevated, became the latest talk of the kingdom. I'm glad we decided to keep the container in the territories because it gave the ants plenty of room to dig while also preventing soil from being dumped into the river, all nicely hidden behind the rocky landscape of the river waterfall. And over the river, take a look. It looked so much better now without all that plant clutter and was super relaxing on the eyes.

Look how pretty it looks! Ah... More light could illuminate the river and better show its inhabitants, so that we can observe them much more effectively. It was nice to see the largest group of White Tigers in the waters. And AC Family, you won't believe what I saw under the waterfall. Have a look! Looks like our one-armed alpha male has found love. Do you see her there in the shadows? The female shrimp was facing her new suitor. They sat in loving engagement, face to face, lovingly touching each other with their antennae, and when the one-armed alpha male had the guts to approach, he played hard to get closer and snuck away!

Ha ha. How nice. And hey, he's got a batch of eggs on the way too! Do you see them there? Man, I really hope this species of Macrobrachium isn't the type that needs brackish water for its shrimp to develop, because I would love to see a large colony of Macrobrachium shrimp established in these waters. They would be entertaining to watch and, best of all, they would help keep the river clean. I was totally happy with the current state of Selva De Fuego. It looks like we managed to solve some mysteries and make another series of improvements to these ever-developing lands.

It has been three weeks since the shelter was found empty and the flood consumed the land. The ground was no longer waterlogged, as the flood water had evaporated and over time had been absorbed by the plants. The fire ants could now expand again from the anthill and begin digging their nest tunnels throughout the territories once again, and even into their new highlands. To celebrate the new Fire Jungle, I placed a cockroach, which the Fire Nation soon found. They rushed to pick up our gift. What I learned from all of this, from our failed biological experiment and malfunctioning plumbing, is that sometimes growth or improvement requires some kind of mishap, some kind of failure.

For example, if it weren't for our failed biological experiment, we wouldn't have created this much more functional space, this new nest box, which to be fair, the Fire Nation needed, more than just a place for cleaner plants. The river profile was also much better now, with its clearer surface, its larger team of river cleaners, and the removal of members who were not the biggest contributors to the entire system. With more water surface, it seems the river has also become an even more effective trap for visiting insects, like this poor male Black Panther. Oh! There's really no hope of anything ending in these hostile Fire Nation grounds.

Through all of this I realized that the process of trial and error is necessary for evolution and improvement. This is how we learn. To be completely honest, AC family, what we've done so far with Jungle of Fire here has been largely uncharted territory in the hobby. Not many people have made this foray into paludarial ant farms, with aquatic creatures, flowing rivers, rain systems, etc. We are among the first in the world to test ideas like this, and isn't it very exciting that together we are at the forefront of ant nursery discovery? Of course, we are bound to make mistakes, because we don't have an instruction manual to follow that was written by someone before us.

Instead, we write the instruction manual as we go. In fact, we have already had many challenges with this build, but I believe that failure is part of the process of success, and it cannot be denied that thanks to many small but ambitious experiments, Fire Jungle is still one of the ant builds. badder. In the Antiverse for one of the baddest ant colonies in the world! Very good AC Family, do you like the look of the new Selva de Fuego? I'm not sure what this new setup will be like, but I'll surely keep you posted on the progress of its inhabitants.

Don't you wonder if these shrimp will end up reproducing? Don't you want to see how complex shrimp society is and how they will end up contributing to the system? I know what I do! So hit the SUBSCRIBE button and the BELL ICON now so you don't miss the continuation of her story, and hit the LIKE button every time, even now. If you're new to the channel and want to catch up on the entire AntsCanada story, click on this playlist here to watch all the Antiverse Ant stories from the beginning so you can better appreciate the ants' journey, as well as we have seen them.

Trust me! It's crazy! AC Inner Colony, I've left you a hidden cookie here, if you just want to see extended play footage of the new Jungle of Fire. It's super calming and satisfying for the eyes, so check it out. And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week! Last week we asked: What was your favorite ant colony and why? There was no correct answer but congratulations to Henry Maravilla who answered correctly: My favorite colony in the 'Antiverse' is definitely the 'Dark Knights'; I find it fascinating how they can make genetic copies of themselves to mate, without inbreeding;

It just goes to show how different ants are compared to us humans. Congratulations Henry, you just won a free Hybrid Nest 2.0 premium ant farm in our store! In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask: Why is the death of the Guppy Gang ultimately beneficial to the Fire Jungle and its inhabitants? Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free eBook manual from our store. I hope you can subscribe to my channel as we upload every Saturday at 8am. ITS T. Remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us continue making more.

It's ant love forever!