Homemade_ecoystems

New home for new Bob

So I ordered some new Bobs... they haven't arrived yet but their home is ready to move in!

Sting Bob is out for a stroll

I need to take a look at night because at day time he is in his Burrow below ground.

Possible new Bobs?

These are 2 isopod species I could buy.. they look very very cool to say the least. Only problem: They are 40 euro for 1 animal... and ofcourse buying only one would be stupid. With 2 or 3 there is at least a very small chance of them mating.

I'm still debating if I should buy them because that is a lot of money.

However a: 1€ vs 40€ pet rollie pollie video would be cool

What do you guys think? should I spend 150 euro or so on isopods? 😅

The new nest!

I think the mold is disappearing a bit. Construction is very much going on!

Update on the mold in the ants nest.

The mold hasn't spread more so that is a good thing! Also the ants keep expanding the tunnels

Early access to full video!

Enjoy, this video was a loooot of work. Hope it shows.

Taking a sponsor on the channel, Yes or no.

Hi !

As you guys know I have never taken a sponsor before on the channel. The only thing I accepted before was the ant colony from Ant Cube.

What you maybe don't know is that I get emails daily from potential sponsors but I turn them all down, both because they just don't fit the channel and I don't want to ''sell out''.

Recently I was contacted by ''opera browser'' to be sponsored in one of my upcoming videos. This was the first company that contacted me that I actually u...

Working hard on next video!

It is going to be one of my longer ones. Aiming for 12-13min. I find it hard to get videos to a decent length because I'm very critical for my footage. I think I throw away like 75% of what I film because it is too shaky, not clear enough, too boring, not focussed enough or whatever. Always happy to get a video that is a bit longer with all (what I think) good footage. also afraid people with get bored if I make them too long 😅

anyway like always I will post it here for paying patron...

I have good news and bad news...

The good news is the ants are continuing digging a lot of tunnels in the new nest. The bad news, some mold is growing. I put a UV light on it and I'm not watering the nest anymore in hopes it will solve itself like that. But I'm afraid if it keeps getting worse I will have to disconnect the nest, somehow get all the ants out, disinfect it and reconnect. That will be nearly impossible but I will have to make it work somehow.

This is getting big (that's what she said)

I wonder where this ant colony will end 😅 will probably have to add more parts in the future but I think they are good now for at least a year or 2

The ants have been busy already!

Ant walking on the staircase

BIG update on my largest ant colony...

I finally moved them to my new house.. contected the stairs (and failed at first) and also connected their expansion.

Ant queen spoted in the wild.

For the people in Europe (Region Belgium, Netherlands,...) there are a lot of black garden ant queens on the move. I saw hundreds of them looking for a place to start a colony. If you want your own colony now is the time. Find a queen like this without wings and give her a nice testtube. In a few months you will have your own colony !

Early access to full video

Enjoy!

Something different but you guys seem to like mold sooo...

Finishing next video

I hope I can get it finished tomorrow for the early access for paying patrons!

Getting a bit more space

You know what that means... more space = more Bobs!

The expansion for my biggest colony has arrived

The can is for size. Think they will like this upgrade! It is twice as wide as the current nests and thicker too. I'll make some videos when I attach it.

What is dirtier, your phone or your toilet?

First results are in! Of the 10 tested things so far the terrarium is "dirtiest". It has a lot of bacterial colonies on the plate. They are not necessarily bad bacteria. Surprisingly the plate of the phone had no growth yet and the one of the toilet had only 2 small bacteria colonies. But this is only day 1, need to give it at least 4 days.

The agar plates have arrived for mold testing

Since I have only 10 I had to Select between the suggestions you guys gave. I have selected these 10:

1)phone
2) toilet seat
3) Ant terrarium
4) other terrarium
5) mold jar from previous experiment
6) inside fridge
7) keyboard
8) light switch
9) shoe
10) inside washing machine
If this works will I might buy another set to test other stuff

Preview: Ant staircase

I bought an ant staircase, yup really. I thought it was time to replace the books where the arena of the big colony sits on.

With this staircase the ants can walk from the arena on the floor to the top of the nest. So I can replace the hose in the second picture.

I also bought an expansion for the ant colony since they are growing in numbers FAST.

once the new part and the staircase I will post a video here for the paying...

I found an earwig with my strawberries..

Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet (release or build terrarium) this depends on if he wants to eat or not in the next day.

Always found these things very interesting! Don't think many people know this but earwig mothers feed their jung kinda like birds. They regurgitate food for them. Pretty cool right?

Anyway meet new Bob, I'll keep you posted on what I do with him.

Update on stick Bobs!

I noticed that one of the stick Bobs had red markings on her legs. That means one thing: they are adult! So I went looking for eggs and behold! I found some, 3 to be exact. I'll keep you posted on the amount of eggs and when they hatch!

Decide the content of next video

Since the mold video was somewhat of a success I ordered this set to test for mold/bacteria on surfaces. I can swap different surfaces and than grow out mold and bacteria colonies on the agar plates.

I have 10 plates and I want to test:

1. cellphone
2. toilet seat
3. Shoes
4 - 10. ???

any suggestions. It should also work to detect mold spores in the air by just placing the agar plate open for 1 hour.

It will take a while before this will be de...

Update on the progress

We lost 1 paying patreon but we gained a lot free members so our Bobmunity is growing! Nice! #WeareBob

Early access to full video!

Enjoy!

sneak peek from next video!

My next video will be an ant video again. I think I might get it finished by this weekend or monday so the people in the paying tiers will get it almost a week early this time!

I invested in a second screen to make editing easier.

Homemade ecosystems gone proffessional... proffesional.. euhm I'm a pro now.

Anyway thanks to all of your support on patreon that allowed me to buy this!

Have a nice evening (or morning or afternoon depending on where you live)!

Update on the bread

Not much has changed. I'm wondering if I should add some extra things to the jars to "feed" the mold?

I found a wild ant Bob protecting its aphid farm.

Pretty cool right?