So designing my own formicarium.... Components and general thoughts
I had a think about this and I want to use recycled components or home made components as much as possible. That said I'm planing to buy a lot of tubing to build a really modular and expandable nest
for component scale I made this
For reference its 2px per mm you might have to zoom in to see it on some screens. The dark and light blue tubing is roughly the same size as AC tubing, though that's in imperial not metric, and the metric versions of red purple and dark blue tubing are what I can get really easily. If/when I can find completely clear orange tubing I'll probably buy it as the connectors are more awesome.
The top and bottom sections with orange and purple outlines are the see-through connectors I found (orange) and the cheap opaque connectors I can get at my local DIY store in black or white.
I think the red piping will be more than adequate for nesting I can make chambers of any length without any difficulty and link them to the purple tubes at each end for deeper connections or tunnels, hydration or cotton wool for air. allowing for managed hydration and oxygen.
I have some clear plastic boxes I'm going to use a small 3L for my outworld and a large 84L as a tank to keep everything in most of the time, Specifically they're 'really useful boxes' that look like this
the large one is 710mm Long x 440mm Wide x 380mm High External and 610mm x 370mm x 355mm Internal
the little one is 245mm Long x 180mm Wide x 160mm High External and 190mm x 140mm x 120mm Internal
I hope people will agree that this will be more than enough space to start with. And I've thought about how to ant seal them without air sealing them, the lid sits on the top of the box on little plastic struts and clips into place for a firm but not even ant proof seal, I'm going to cut a hole into a lid and use the way it clips together to put in something solid on between the lip and the lid to seal it and glue some wire mesh between this homemade gasket, if I need to have access I pop the clips and the whole lid comes off with and the seal too.
While I'd really like to be able to make a tree with the tubes I know that may cause problems so I'll settle for a partial tree with the furthest ends connected together into loops, there's no easy way to diagram what I'm thinking but I might be able to explain it better by way of how over time it'll get constructed.
I'll start off the nest with something like a # four Xs linked together and the ends mostly blocked off with cotton wool or stoppers. One section will lead off to the the test tube set up, which I'll eventually replace with a hydration test tube and another the outworld leaving six blocked off for later expansion and no excess tubing as they won't need it. As they grow I'll extend each of the ends off for a while with tubing, chambers made of bigger tubing, longer tunnel sections with smaller tubing and probably deeper junctions in the nest, when I think a section of tunnel and chambers has reached it's limit, maybe a meter long with 4-8 little off shoots (no more than 200mm deep, (8 inches) with chambers or hydration depending on what I think the colony needs at the time of expansion), I'll connect it back somewhere nearer to the # maybe on an existing line or with a T or X connecting it to the # and allowing me to start a new line.
Because I'll have plenty of tubing at the beginning I may be able to found a few colonies with the same equipment to start with, (although I might need cheap disposable out worlds) and either merge them (risky but possible) or release all but the most promising colony as I begin to need more space.