I'm fairly new into this hobby, so take my opinion with a grain of salt please.
One can't have a self-sustaining ant colony anywhere without a queen ant. You probably already knew this, but that needs to be laid down as base knowledge.
As for having the colony in the paludarium itself is, in my opinion, risky business. Ants are meat eaters and scavengers by nature, and it's not unheard of having ants attack a bigger creature because the critter was in the ants territory. Even one bite from an ant can cause damage to a little frog, especially if the bite is around the eyes. Granted, tiny black ants won't cause that much damage, but still- they bite.
As for soil, ants don't really have a preference as long as it isn't soggy, compacted, or too loose for building tunnels. Bark and logs are often liked, especially when they touch ground.
The thing about ants is that they store food, and in a wet environment, this can encourage mold and fungus to grow. They need some sort of meat in their diets. They'll eat dogfood, chicken feed, freshly dead insects, live insects, certain fungus (which some common ants will "farm" underground, etc. However, the "colony" won't be able to sustain itself unless you consistantly add to their numbers and have good hiding spots for them.
To top off my rambling though, I wouldn't suggust it due to ants natural ability to inflict pain.
Ants in dart frog paludarium
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