Ant Test Tubes,
Inserts & Accessories
Our Recommended Ant Test Tube Setup
This configuration is our favourite because it works in nearly all cases. The refillable perlite chamber provides stable hydration, equalized pressure, and long service intervals without flooding. Combined with a textured insert and optional black jacket, it gives queens a secure, low-stress space while keeping colonies visible and easy to manage.
To replicate this setup, visit Customizable Inserts – with test tube and select: Test tube size: 16×125 mm, Insert texture finish: Sand texture, Light protection and rings: Black jacket + 2 tall rings, Water chamber options: Refillable Perlite Chamber. For connectivity, choose Adapter tubing diameter: 9.5 mm (3/8") or 12.7 mm (1/2"), pick the one that matches what you’re connecting to.
Why Test Tubes?
Test tubes offer the most stable and cost-effective way to create a founding setup—your ants' first home. They provide a clear view of your growing colony while maintaining the essential trio: humid air, drinking water, and oxygen access.
Ant test tubes retain moisture significantly longer than formicaria, this is due to the size of the water chamber compared to the air or nesting chamber, allowing queens to remain undisturbed for extended periods. This is crucial because frequent checking, vibrations, sudden light changes, and unnecessary movement cause stress that can lead queens to abandon or eat their eggs and slow colony growth.
Test tubes are inexpensive, quick to clean and sanitize, simple to stack and store using a test tube rack, and can be connected with tubing to create endless possibilities for expanding your setup. On this page, you'll find various inserts, attachments, and accessories to completely customize your test tube setup.
Our test tube hardware is precision 3D-printed with tiny details, tight dimensional tolerances, and engineered specifically for ant keeping; every aspect is designed to solve real ant-keeping challenges that enhance test tube setups.
Picking the Right-Sized Test Tube & Accessories
The biggest mistake most ant keepers make is thinking "bigger is better" and humanizing ants by assuming they feel cramped in smaller spaces. The truth is ants prefer compact tight spaces! As ectothermic (cold-blooded) creatures, it's instinctive for them to maintain nest heat using the metabolic warmth produced by all workers collectively, too much space makes this regulation much harder.
A 16x125mm test tube works exceptionally well with nearly all species and is our recommended standard size, our live queen ants ship in such tube. Once you select a size, it's crucial to stick with the same dimater (ex. 16mm) throughout your setup—this ensures all accessories, adapters, tubing, and components fit together seamlessly, so you have everything you need when you need it and expansion becomes effortless.
Black jackets reduce light exposure while rings elevate tubes—short rings (2mm) prevent rolling, while tall rings (4mm+) also accommodate heat cables and align with our standard equipment tubing port height.
Test Tube Inserts
We strongly encourage adding a Test Tube Insert to eliminate the limitations of plain bare glass setups. Ant nests naturally regulate humidity and temperature through structure and moisture-rich materials, creating microclimates optimal for brood development. Our mineral-textured inserts replicate this principle: their porous, grippy surface creates humid, warm crevices that mimic natural nesting substrates. This helps brood retain moisture, develop steadily, and remain protected from flooding—all while maintaining a compact, natural-feeling space inside the test tube.
For small to medium species, slow-growing colonies, or many cryptic species, choose the Cryptic Test Tube Insert; its low-ceiling, compact chambers remove wasted space, reduce stress, and keep brood in the most stable zone of moisture and warmth for steady development, while positioning the colony near the top for easy viewing.
Hydration & Feeding
Understanding your queen's needs is essential: fully-claustral queens only require food after nanitics (first workers) eclose, while semi-claustral queens must have continuous access to food from day one since they don't remain confined and need nutrition to develop their colonies.
We recommend connecting a foraging area (outworld) for external feeding—this approach is significantly easier and causes far less stress than inserting and removing food directly inside the test tube. We offer complete foraging solutions from nano feeding stations up to glass display arenas in our outworld category page. Of course for those that prefer feeding directly in the tube we also have feeding inserts and nano dishes that help with the task.
For hydration, the Refillable Perlite Chamber improves the hydration mechanisms of traditional ant test tube setups, it offers three critical advantages: reduced need to relocate the queen/colony when water runs out, precise control over test tube humidity, and pressure equalization that prevents leaks during temperature changes (like emerging from diapause) or atmospheric pressure shifts. The long or short cotton water keeper prevents the cotton in traditional setups from shifting backward as water evaporates, ensuring tight insert fit and a consistent space in the nesting chamber.
Connectivity to Other Hardware
Our setups support smart connectivity when paired with the right parts; either by choosing a configuration that includes the cone adapter, or by adding the adapter separately. The cone adapter with silicone fitting bridges rigid glass test tubes to flexible vinyl tubing and supports the two common North American standards: 9.5 mm (3/8") and 12.7 mm (1/2"). The silicone sleeve seats inside the glass tube; the cone secures the vinyl tube for a snug fit.
This modular approach makes it easy to expand from a single founding tube to a full network of outworlds and formicaria.
