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...

Here are some links...

A couple of commenters had some interesting things.

From the Nasa Mission

Mission data collected from the stars academy

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.

Wouldn't it be worth trying to add some salt, sugar, vitamins, minerals and an egg to cooking gelatin (which is sold in large packets at your local grocery store)? Gelatin is cow toe-nail clippings, it's gotta have some protein!

Wife called biochemist hubby at work 20 minutes ago. Wants more blue gel for the little princess. 15 minutes of googling and the best I find is this forum. Some random thoughts. My kid's gel looked like agarose (highly purified agar) and has physical properties of agar. Don't understand why http://www.sciencetoystore.com/ sells hydrated and solidified gel instead of powder. Agarose powder is much easier to melt in microwave. Remelting agar is arduous. Agar/agarose is probably indigestible to ants (very few things besides some marine bacteria can digest agarose polymers). I figure a decent ant growth media mentioned above should mix in just fine with 1-2 percent agarose and water. I want to add a stronger antifungal than whatever we had. Mold ruined the last ant colony. Not sure about heat sensitivity of antifungal components in honey or whatever and ant media. May want to mix into molten agar after temperature drops below 50C. Most agars harden below 40C. #1 advice for those with molten agar - never pour down the drain.

Gelatin/collagen is a terrible protein source. It's missing several essential amino acids. It needs to be supplemented, same as agar.

NASA launched the blue gel ant farm on STS107, the ill fated Columbia mission. Can't find any publications relating to it.

More than I need to know about ant farms: http://ants.pbwiki.com/

can I make my own non-nutritious non-toxic transparent gel, and just hand feed the ants?
What would be the water requirements?

I'm looking up for some care sheets or recipes right now. If you know any link please reply.

Thanks.

Starts on page six through eight. it tells about the original nasa experiment and other useful information about the gel.

"The tunneling medium is an agar-based gel. Numerous
tests were performed with several types of standard
captive ant tunneling media, such as sand, soil, pumice
and vermiculite. With all of these media the tunnels risk
collapse due to the vibration of landing, and tend to be
prone to fungal infection if an ant dies within the habitat,
or from food molding. The agar gel was chosen as the
tunneling medium as it is firm enough to maintain
integrity during launch and landing vibrations, and
provides fungus and mold suppression through inhibitors
in the gel. The gel is provided by Plant Technologies,
Inc., New Jersey.
The ants tunnel through the gel in a similar manner to
the way they would tunnel through sand, soil or other
standard medium. The workers bite off pieces of
medium and carry it out of the tunnel, placing it outside
the tunneling medium area, as they would with pieces of
sand. The gel is colored to provide contrast with the ants
for easier visualization with the video. A starter tunnel of
approximately 1cm in depth is provided in the gel to
stimulate the ants to commence tunneling once inserted
into the tunneling area of the habitat.
Figure 9. shows worker ants within tunnels they have made through
the agar gel.
The agar gel contains sucrose to stimulate the ants to
eat it. Amino acids, vitamins and minerals are added to
the gel to provide an appropriate diet for the ants. As
the agar gel is largely made up of water, the ants also
receive all their water from the gel as they eat it. Both
the metabolizing of the gel by the ants, and the
evaporation of water from the gel provides humidity
within the tunnels. Adequate ventilation in the habitat
ensures that no water collects within the tunnels or
habitat area."

http://www.paragonsdc.com/docs/01ICES-252.pdf

This website tells about the original experiments that were sent up into space. It tells what the gel was made of and the company that manufactured it. starts on page six through eight

http://www.paragonsdc.com/docs/01ICES-252.pdf

you can buy the ant gel from a website called www.antgel.com
they ship it in powder form with instructions. never used it myself. they will do special / bulk orders. just contact them. various colours available. they ship to the US and to the rest of the planet. hope this helps.

ah! great thread people... but I just went to antgel.com and got this message:

"We are currently sold out. Please email us if you would like to be notified when we resume shipping."

any one have any other ideas for bulk gel?

I got the ant farm last year and just found the thing under some boxes full of fungus. So much for anti fungals! Anyhow, I found this site while searching for replacement gel and what a thread! Not sure how I'll clean out the farm, but I paid like over $20 for the darn thing so I don't want to toss it. It was fun to watch the ants!

Guess I'll check out some of the links posted on this thread and hope as more sources become available people will kept posting the info here!

So .... jello is out of the question? HA. Guess it would melt.

I recently purchased the Antworks(R) ant-farm and (from a seperate company) ants. The ants I received must have been retarded because they created a "tunnel" (more like a grave) down the side of the enclosure and basically buried themselves and died.

After removing the gel from the Antworks(R) ant-farm, I rinsed the block in cold water to remove the remaining bits of gel that the ants had carried to the surface. I had read that in order to reuse the existing ant structure you merely needed to rinse it in cold water as warm/hot water dissolves the gel.

I tried boiling the gel by cutting it up (into rather large chunks) and placing it inside a coffee mug, which I then placed in a pot of water on the stove. After about 20 minutes I wasn't getting anywhere.

My next attempt was to place the coffee mug-o-chunks into the microwave. This began boiling rather quickly, so I intermittently stopped/started the microwave to prevent the liquid from over-flowing. My liquid/gel was steaming (I assume from water boiling off), so I added about 1.5oz of water to the mixture and continued.

I microwaved the gel until the it had completely liquified, then poured it back into the Antworks(R) habitat. I then placed the habitat into the refrigerator for 45 minutes to allow the gel to cool and solidify.

As soon as I collect some ants and place them in the habitat I will post the results on this forum.

i found the following post on a forum on deal extreme and think it maybe helpful. although it dosent account for the anti-fungal agent and nutrients it shouldnt be to far off the right ratio. I work in a bio lab and we usually use agar.




"Theorically it will be easy to make that "jelly"


You will need:


-12/15 gr of Agar for 1 liter.


-I do not know what tipe of energetical needs have the ants, but maybe the will need something like glucose, lactose, manitol.




Mix, hidratate, cook, and leve it cold "



he also posted this useful info



"As I said in the other post, there is somethign called Agar. It is used to make solid jellys, the concentration for a solid jelly is beetwen 12 and 15 gr per litre. Semi-solid beetwen 2,5-3 gr per litre"


Hopefully it helps and someone can do the testing so i can benifit from their hard work.

I am wondering if you can just use gelatin, not jello, but actual gelatin in the powdered form, following the box recipe and maybe add some honey when it cools for antifungal? Our ant farm also got mold after the ants died. And we simply cleaned out the mold and chopped up the gel stuff and microwaved it. We also added a small bit of water because it had evaporated a tad over several months. Maybe you could even buy the agar at the health food store, prepare it and add honey for antifungal and it would work?

Here is a clip of the U.S. Patent:

What is claimed is:

1. A soil-less ant habitat medium providing both a habitat and nutrients comprising the combination of a culture medium and a chemical agent, which chemical agent comprises: methylchloroisothiazolinone in a concentration range of about 2.0 to 2.6 g/l; methylisothiazolinone in a concentration range of about 0.6 to about 0.8 g/l; magnesium chloride in a concentration range of about 15.0 to 30 g/l; and magnesium nitrate in a concentration range of about 15.0 to 30 g/l; wherein the chemical agent is present in the culture medium at a concentration that reduces or prevents microbial contamination of the culture medium and allows for the substantially sustained viability of the ants inhabiting the habitat media.

2. The ant habitat medium of claim 1, wherein the chemical agent further comprises potassium sorbate in a concentration range of about 15 to about 25 g/l...

Hi, i am a chemical engineer, working on the industry EH&S dept who also wants to build a gel antfarm.
On the substance mentioned, i think it may be 5-Chloro-2-Methyl-4-Isothiazolin-3-One.

This is commercially called Newcide 2140 by a supplier called Newbury. It has the following composition (from the MSDS):
Substance ----- concentration
5-Chloro-2-Methyl-4-Isothiazolin-3-One - 15 ppm
2-Metil-4-isotiazolin-3-One - 15 ppm.

It is sold as a potent biocide for adhesive and paint, but it is also used on coolant water, on closed systems.

On the other stuff, if the gel is all the ants will eat and drink it must have:
Structure and moisture control: Agar
Minerals: human formulated electrolite solution?
High quality Protein source: egg yolk?
Carbohidrates: Honey? as a plus it has fungicide properties
Another Fungicide: ??
Biocide: Isotiazolin solution only?

Be careful with Isotiazolin as it is toxic.

I think biocide is the most important ingredient, yet you know, "one who holds a hammer tends to see all problems as nails"

I will check this thread around...

I bought some refill gel called "Ant Chow" a couple of years ago to refill my Antworks gel ant habitat. The refill kit makes a liter of gel so I used the left-over to make a custom ant farm. I've bought it on ebay since then. It's about 8-10$ to refill 3 antworks or 2 ant farms. It comes clear but you can add a few drops of food coloring to make your own colored gel. Fun stuff!