Did you actually figure out how to make the gel, or are you just talking about the antworks space age ant habitat? I've been trying to find a recipe or site that sels just the gel ingredients to create much larger habitats.... like aquarium size....

Me too. I'm looking for the gel recipe to make larger habitats as well. Anybody found it?

I´m also interested to find the gel in biger amounts, is this possible? plesase contact me if you know anything.

if you have the recipe for the agar based nasa gel we are willing to pay for it! email me @ acole@acemountroyal.com

thanks,
chris

ditto! If anyone knows where I can find the recipe or buy a mix please email me.

I have seen a recipe on the web for a gellatin based food source for ants. I have a feeling the ant gel in the antworks colony is the same. Gelatin, vitamins, coloring. I will try to find the recipe and post a link.

We're looking for a recipe or a way to buy the gel in large amounts. If anyone knows anything please email me at mbell2@artic.edu

for the not so scientific among us, is it possible to figure out a recipe from the patent because it seems like they say so many things but not like how to make it. also, has anyone heard of these plant culture things. they seem to be a gel that plants grow from and get nutrients from. could this be similar? here's a link for the plant culture...

http://www.carnegieinstitution.org/first_light_case/horn/PTC/preptcmed.html

hopefully we'll figure out a recipe eventually.

I too am looking for the gel mixture, i'd like to fill an entire fish tank with this stuff and really see some tunneling!

I use this stuff at my work called agar which makes a gel for catterpilar food. I bet the ant gel is agar, sugar, and some sort of blue blue food coloring

I'm doing a Science experiment for school, and I found that I have to research an innovation, so I did this. I want to know if anyone finds out in the next two weeks (today is the 1/3/07) if you know about the recipe.
Thanks, Katherine

how do you make this gel?

I am looking for the recipe as well...

i take a dna forensics class and we use an agarose gel to run dna in. agarose is a starch extracted from seaweed which might have some nutritional value. basically the mix is this agarose powder, a salt water solution and all you need is heat. i cant imagine the powder is difficult to obtain. who knows if it will work, its worth a shot though. we use a microwave to heat it so its really not that complicated. if anyone gives it a shot post how it works.

I'm lookin to fill an aquarium also...maybe ballistics gel would work. There are a lot of recipes for that online.

Still no recipe??

If anybodies has an original packaging with the gel composition I can try to work out a recipe, I work in a microbiology lab and we use agar media and salt supplements all the time. Just copy the exact wording of all the ingredients, in the same order they appear, and I'll see what I can do from there.

I'd also like to find the secret recipe...

perhaps with a little thought and experimentation we could work it out ourselves?

I read somewhere it contains an anti fungal agent as well as vitamins and probably sugar. Perhaps some kind of preservative too?

So, nobody has an original packaging with the listed ingredients that we could start working on?

I just got an antworks antfarm. I also got replacement gel from a different company. Neither has a list of ingredients. Maybe Brendan or Magali could analyze it? If either one works in a lab? Or does anyone know of a company who would analyze it? The block I bought is 4-5 inch cube of gel that you soften in the microwave. Not a lot of gel and it cost $9. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I it very difficult to find out the ingredients from the final product, especially if you have a small amount. Can you give the reference of the company from which you bought the replacement gel, to see if we can find anything out regarding the gel composition.
Two details of importance are: (1) do you have to add water before softening the gel in the microwave?, and (2) how long are you suppose to melt down the 4-5 inches cube in a 900W microwave to make it liquid?
Thanks for the infos

here it is:
http://www.antstore.net/shop/product_info.php/info/p1156_Formicarien-gel-powder-transparent-100g.html

Thanks someone for the URl.
From the description, the gel probably contains SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate), a detergeant, to prevent growth of fungi and other contaminant, since it foams if boiling. The question is at which concentration so it is not harmful to the ants? Other components are for sure agar, I would bet somewhere between 5 and 15g/L. Since the ants use it as food it need vitamins and minerals, which exact composition for 500ml I can provide upon request 'cause its long, a carbon (sugar) source such as honey, and proteins such as an egg (62ml honey & 1 full hen's egg for 500ml is what I found in a scientific journal for ants food).
I'll keep on looking and will update if anything new comes along.

you'd think that in over 2 years we could figure this out. i'll be watching this forum for the recipe. i am confident you guys will be able to solve the mistery. keep up the good work.

-johnc

The only bad thing about the url for the gel is that it does not deliver to the U.S. I will be waiting for the recipe with eagerness.

Well I can give you a free alternative to extending the life of your antworks gel.. I took out the remaining gel, picked out most of the dirt specks, added a little water, about 1/3 of the amount of remaining gel, cut it up and microwaved it for about 3 min or until boiling. Then poured it back into my antworks. :) Worked for me.

Ok, this is the first time I have posted on this forum.... heres to stepping into 2 years of history...

So I have been researching this very topic for about a year now without ever stepping into or seeing this forum. Sounds like you are all definantly on the right track.

I have been going a step further and seeing where antworks is buying its gel.... most of it is being produced in and put into the units in China (www.alibaba.com, look it up). Antworks of course would never tell you this... they just sent me an official letter stating "getting info on their products require signing a confidentiality agreement... and are produced outside of the United States"

Anyhow, I have emailed back and forth with two of these suppliers who have agreed to ship me the gel (for a huge cost... something like $22,500 for like 10k lbs of it.... minimum orders are fun). I will of course not be buying it.. however, both suppliers have stated that it would ship in a POWDER form and might have trouble in customs.

So is it possible that all the ingredients stated earlier in the post could come in a powder form?

Are we overthinking this? Can it just be agar powder and maybe an antifungal like honey with water and food coloring?

*Will keep looking into it*

Buildafarm

here is the latest response to my research...
"Thank you for your reply.
The powder is only agar powder,you have to add antibiotic and eating pigment and other ingredients
If you need all ingredients,the cost will be add $25 bases on 1kg agar powder.
Please let us know if you have any question.
We are looking forward to your reply.

Thanks & Best Regards"

so there ya have it... the mystery goes on.

Buildafarm

The recipe ingredients are agarose plus sugar plus water. You can buy Agarose online, but you can also go to a health food store and buy Agar powder (Now Foods Agar Powder, about $7) and get a similar gel but it won't be crystal-clear or colorless. It will be cloudy and pale amber. If you add the whole jar to 2 gallons of water and boil it in (takes a loooong time), plus three drops of green food coloring, then the translucent gel will continuously ooze water and the ants will drown. I know that from experience! Also, I had one dark fungus colony start to grow and then stop on the surface. If you take _that_ gel and boil it down to about half a gallon, add a tablespoon of cornstarch and some sugar then the gel is hard, dry, too green and almost opaque. Somewhere between would work okay. Also, the cornstarch made it more opaque than otherwise so you wouldn't need it. And, the starch makes my gel more susceptible to growing "things" so you should NOT add it. The more nutrients you add to your gel the more "things" can grow in it. Sugar is enough, Agar is from seaweed so it will have other nutrients in it. If you buy Agarose then a 1% gel would be very thick. DNA Separation Agarose is not cheap (>$1/gram) so you might want to see if health food store Agar powder will make something you can put up with.

I think it would be great to make your own replacement Ant Habitat Gel but I just found a website that stocks the replacement gel. It comes pre-mixed in semi-solid chunks (not a powder) for $10.

Go to this website page for instructions and the order the replacement gel. I'm ordering 2 today and will repost to let you know how this works out for me. - Tim

http://www.sciencetoystore.com/contents/en-us/d61_replacement_gel_ant.html

Thanks for the information Mike! Sounds like you've done a bit of experimenting yourself. Have you found that the ants tunnel and eat the gel you made at the right consistancy without much trouble?
In experimenting with the gel my LARGE problem was the gel would evaporate the water and shrink extremely fast.(over 4-5 days) Do you have the same problem at all? (of course ive been leaving it in open air and not in the antworks habitat)
I checked agarose on the internet and it is extremely expensive, is it a lot clearer than the regular agar?

Ok. I received the gel packs from the website I posted http://www.sciencetoystore.com/contents/en-us/d61_replacement_gel_ant.html

It's very tricky to get this stuff to melt. The website instructions say to chop up the gel chunks into very small pieces. This is important. Then put the gel pieces into a clear microwave safe bowl and boil in the microwave for 60 seconds. Getting this stuff to boil is challenging.

First, nothing you put in the microwave with a lid on it is going to stay shut! It will EXPLODE! So what I did was cover a GLAD tupperware bowl with clear cling wrap then I set the lit on tightly but not shut. Some pressure will need to get out.

However, in order to boil this stuff it's going to consume a good bit of the liquid from the gel. So I added water along the way so I wouldn't COOK the stuff as the water evaporated off.

I'm happy to say with the above pointers you should be able to buy this stuff and make your own ant gel. Good luck!

Email me if you have any questions or problems. javanni@yahoo.com

Happy to help...

how much gel do you get for 10.99? I need to fill a space thats 14'x2'

Do you mean 14" by 2" because I can't even begin to imagine where you are going to be able to store a 28 foot square ant farm. Even at Degree level (grad or post grad) it would be difficult to find space to store and study a colony of that size. However I would certainly love (and pay) to see such an incredible site.