Stackable Pill Containers?

[RainbowScience]

So I have a Brachymyrmex depilis queen and have been racking my brain for an innovative formicarium design. Anyone who has experience with this species knows that they are extremely small. Tar Heels "Atom" founding formicarium seemed like it would work for a while, but I want something expandable and cheap. I found these stackable pill containers at the dollar store. Each container acts as the lid for the next container up, with the top-most container having it's own lid. Each container is 1.5 inches in diameter and just under 1 inch tall (3/4 inch actual inside space due to the overlap). One of the containers is red which is useful.

I have a few ideas on different ways to utilize it, but wanted to post on here for others to have a poke at as well.

[RainbowScience]

I finally got around to messing with the set of pill containers I bought. Here's the concept I have so far for the water/humidity system. I need to wait on my drill to recharge to finish up some more. The blue container holds medium and is filled with water from a 1/16 inch hole in the side. I have the red container screwed on top of it with several pin-sized holes to allow the moisture through, one of the holes is 1/16 inch as well to provide a place to drink. I'm designing this as a potential formicarium for Brachymyrmex depilis whose workers are small enough to fit through a 1/16 inch hole, otherwise all of those pinholes would have been the full 1/16 inch. I still need to put a few pinholes around the upper rim of the red container for airflow purposes.



Another container will sit on top of the red container acting as it's lid. That container will have a blocked hole in it. The idea is that when the colony needs more space you can simply unblock the hole and add another container on top, etc. A hole could potentially be drilled in the side as well for tube access to an outworld, or potentially in the final lid... idk, we'll see

More pictures of this experimental disaster as I go

[Chewyrockafeller]

Do the jars seal together? I'm worried about when you have a colony of 50+ ants. I can see it getting knocked over and every chamber breaking open.

[RainbowScience]

Do the jars seal together? I'm worried about when you have a colony of 50+ ants. I can see it getting knocked over and every chamber breaking open.

Yeah, they screw onto one another. could chuck it across the room and be okay.

[RainbowScience]

More concepts. Rubber stopper between layers, until the colony is large enough for the next container to be added. Tubing to outworld or another stack of pill containers. The same rubber stopper can block the hole the airline tubing fits into. I suppose that every container besides the bottom two can be identical: 3 pin-sized air holes, 1 side hole, and 1 bottom hole.

[Martialis]

More concepts. Rubber stopper between layers, until the colony is large enough for the next container to be added. Tubing to outworld or another stack of pill containers. The same rubber stopper can block the hole the airline tubing fits into. I suppose that every container besides the bottom two can be identical: 3 pin-sized air holes, 1 side hole, and 1 bottom hole.

Cool! Where do get these?

[RainbowScience]

More concepts. Rubber stopper between layers, until the colony is large enough for the next container to be added. Tubing to outworld or another stack of pill containers. The same rubber stopper can block the hole the airline tubing fits into. I suppose that every container besides the bottom two can be identical: 3 pin-sized air holes, 1 side hole, and 1 bottom hole.

Cool! Where do get these?

It's in my first post. I found them at the dollar store for well a dollar, but if you search google for "stackable pill containers" they should show up.

[RainbowScience]

Oh snap, they come in larger sizes too! The large version is 2.75 inches in diameter! That would make this same design, at a larger scale, suitable for many other species.

[RainbowScience]

Sorry about the post spam, it's not letting me edit my old posts for some reason.

The containers are available on Amazon.
Small (1.5" diameter): http://amzn.to/2d49CGK
Medium (2.0" diameter): http://amzn.to/2d49hnc
Large (2.75" diameter): http://amzn.to/2dmuaOi

Though I would recommend looking for something equivalent at your local dollar store.

[RainbowScience]

Alright, done messing around with the prototype (minus drilling a few more air holes on some of the chambers). I actually think it's quite the functional design that'll last a colony a decent amount of time and all for a dollar.
There's a lot of different ways you can set this up, like blocking direct floor to floor access and using tubes to connect the floors instead. In the pictures I tried to make a gradient with the colors so the bottom chamber is the darkest to ants and the top is the lightest. The only annoying thing about making this was cutting the rubber plugs to size, but one could easily use cotton instead.
The size of the formicarium can grow with the colony, you can change the water media simply by removing the bottom chamber, you can refill the water with a syringe without even removing the water chamber, the red plastic should make queens feel more comfortable, you could customize the insides of the different chambers if you wished, visibility is pretty good, and the containers come in a suitable range of sizes. You can even carry around just the red chamber with the lid instead of an entire test tube when you are on the field. After you catch a queen, just screw the water chamber onto the bottom and it's ready to roll.

Obviously this isn't perfect, but I'm proud to have made something that works in a single sitting. What are your guy's thoughts? I'm sure you all can think of potential issues or improvements.
http://imgur.com/jDJUBvz