Ant farms in space!
Ever seen one of these Ant Farms made of a mysterious blue gel?
I was interested to know what the gel was made of.... after some educated guesses and some web trawling I've tracked down the main components:
agar (or agarose) which is a sea-weed based material used by microbiologists and molecular biologists to either seperate DNA or grow bacteria. This substance is mixed with a nutrient media (with sucrose and vitamins and minerals) and heated. The agar 'melts' and forms a clear gel which can be poured into a container and allowed to set. Unfortunately the agar is not all that easy for the average person to track down..... I'll work harder at collecting information about the other components. The original space experiment is described here:
http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/experiments/ants_top.htm#
And the gel was orginally supplied by: Plant Technologies Inc, New Jersey. Apparently it contains an antifungal agent.
1 comment:
I've been looking for this too. A couple of the comments I've read on the sales sites say that when contacted, antworks will say that the high temperatures needed for melting the agar frighten them liability-wise, and so they don't sell the gel by itself.
My guess is that once you gather all of the materials and go through the work to put it together, you end up with more cost than the $19.95 you see for sale.
It does seem wasteful to have to buy a whole kit when you just want to replace the gel, even if you don't want to DIY. I'd even rather just get a new container with the gel already in it. Forget the magnifiers, instructions, packaging, etc.
BTW Uncle Milton now has these as well as his traditional sand farms. They even look like you can get several of them and hook them together with plastic tubing.
TomB
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