How To Make a Tube Spiral For Your Ants

Hi guys! I hope you’re doing well!

Today we’re going to build this long tube spiral, a really cool add-on for our ant nests!

DIY tube spiral for ants

Let’s see how to build it!


The Antstore Ant Spiral Tower

The other day I was surfing the web in search of some cool nest ideas and, as always, I landed on the Antstore online shop website. Under the section “our new products”, I stumbled upon a very cool and unusual nest connector.

That peculiar tube connector is called “Ant spiral tower”. In a nutshell, it’s a very long acrylic tube wrapped around itself, creating a sort of tower-like structure.

Tube spiral on the antstore online shop

The tower is used to connect an ant nest to an outworld. Instead of using a simple piece of tubing that simply goes from the nest to the outworld, the tower creates a long route on which the ants can travel.

I find this product very cool!

This company is very popular in the ant keeping space for making extremely high-quality products, like ant nests, outworlds, and various types of accessories. If you’re interested in finding out more about this company, I would suggest you check out this product review!

This is the review of one of the most popular nests of this company! This amazing-looking glass nest swiftly merges an outworld and a nest, creating a fantastic all-in-one ant keeping product!

But what if we don’t wanna buy the ant spiral from Antstore because we’re on a budget or because the store doesn’t ship to our country?

Let’s build our own version!


What You Need

For this project we need a very long tube, some pieces of wood, a few screws, and some basic tools!

The main piece of the spiral will be the flexible transparent acrylic tube. You can easily find one of these in every hardware store, online, or in a normal shop in the gardening section.

Tube for a diy tube spiral for ants

For this project I’ve chosen a 3m long tube, with an internal diameter of 10mm, and an external diameter of 12mm.

The second piece that we need for the spiral is a wooden panel. Like the tube, you can easily find these in a normal hardware shop.

Wooden panel for a diy tube spiral for ants

By the way… If you, just like me, really like these kinds of D.I.Y. projects, I’m pretty sure you’re going to love this other guide too! In this one, I explain in detail how to make an extremely popular type of ant nest: a Ytong nest!


Making The Two Towers

The first thing we have to do is to decide the size of the spiral. This particular version will have two towers, with the tube passing from one another.

Taking the measurements for the diy tube spiral for ants

After we have marked the wooden panel with the shape of the towers, we can start cutting.

As you can see, I’m using a circular saw to cut the pieces. Alternatively, If you don’t have one of these, you can simply use a jigsaw.

Cutting the panel for the diy tube spiral for ants

Once we have the two pieces, we can then mark them with our preferred height. In my case, I’ve chosen to make the two towers 20cm high.

This time, because the cut is a lot easier to make, we can simply use a standard wood saw.

Cutting the towers of the diy tube spiral for ants

Make sure to secure the piece of wood to the table with some type of clamp, it makes it a lot easier to cut and a lot less dangerous to our hands!

Here’s the piece.

One of the tower of the diy tube spiral for ants

If you want, you can clean the two pieces a bit using some sandpaper.


Drilling The Holes

Now it’s time to mark the spot where we’re going to make the holes, and through which the tube will pass.

You can make the holes using a normal drill with a wood bit. The diameter of the holes needs to match the outer diameter of the tube that we have chosen to use for this project.

Drilling the holes in the diy tube spiral for ants

Here’s the result.

The holes in the two towers of the diy tube spiral for ants

To remove the little imperfections caused by the wood bit, we can use a rounded file. Doing this will facilitate the tedious process of inserting the tube into the holes.

File for the diy tube spiral for ants

Inserting The Tube

After we’ve cleaned all the holes, we can then start inserting the tubes through the holes.

Inserting the tube into the diy tube spiral for ants

If you find it hard to slice the tube through the holes, don’t worry. The holes should be a tight fit with the tube, in order to make it stay in place and don’t make it involuntarily slide out once the project is finished.

To make it slide, simply push the tube very slowly, one inch at a time.

Here’s how it should look after we’ve finished inserting the tube. Not bad at all!

The two towers of the diy tube spiral for ants with the tube

Now to the base!


Making The Base

When the spiral is almost over and we have the final dimensions, we can start making the base on which the spiral will stand.

After we have taken the needed measurements, we can cut it as previously.

Cutting the base for the diy tube spiral for ants

Here’s the base.

The base of the diy tube spiral for ants

Now it’s time to choose the screws that we’re going to use to attach the two towers to the base. Make sure that the screw is long enough to pass the base and grab the towers!

The screw of the base for the diy tube spiral for ants

After that, choose the appropriate drill bit and drill the holes in the base.

Drilling the holes in the diy tube spiral for ants

Once we’ve made the holes in the base, it’s time to clean it.

First, we have to remove all the pencil marks we’ve made in the steps before. After that, we can then proceed to clean the small imperfections by using some sandpaper.

Cleaning the base of the diy tube spiral for ants

Perfect!

The base for the diy tube spiral for ants

Attaching The Towers To The Base

Now to the final step! Attaching the towers to the base!

During this phase, try to screw the screws all the way in, in order to make the tower as stable as possible.

Screwing the base on the diy tube spiral for ants

The Final Result!

Congratulations! You have built an amazing tube spiral! Now you can connect the nest to the outworld with style!

DIY tube spiral for ants

Now you can use it with one of your ant colonies!

DIY tube spiral for ants

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful!

Jar terrarium

If you liked this tutorial and you love making DIY projects, I would strongly suggest you check out this other tutorial! In this one, you will learn how to make a very cool jar terrarium!


Real-world impact!

Thanks to the BRUMA Ants Plus subscribers and our partner Ecologi we are planting lots of trees all around the world! Click on the Ecologi logo to see the real-world impact of this amazing community!


Join our Discord!

Great news! Now we have a Discord server! Discover the ultimate hub for ant enthusiasts, where ant keepers from around the world come together to share their passion!


Have your say!

Do you wanna help us make a better website? Do you have some critiques or cool ideas you wanna share with us about our website? Help us make a better website by answering this quick customer satisfaction survey!

BRUMA Ants logo

If you like the content,

subscribe to our channel!

Subscribe