Advice needed regarding my micro aquarium macro set-up

Hello everyone! I’m new to the forums and would really appreciate some help with my aquarium macro set-up.

First, some background…I’m a biology student and as part of a university project I would like to photograph crustacean larvae. To do this, I’m building a couple of micro aquariums out of Perspex. The animals will be transferred from rearing tanks to these smaller tanks for a couple of minutes whilst I take their pictures. These micro aquariums are about the size of a cigarette packet (but slightly thinner).

These animals are very small during the early stages of their development – about 2-3mm. My main concern is that the camera equipment I have, which includes a Nikon D7000 and the 105mm f2.8 VR macro lens, will not provide sufficient magnification and detail.

Therefore, I’m looking for advice as to how I could go beyond 1:1 magnification. I’ve been reading through other posts and have seen a couple of options:

1) Getting hold of a set of Kenko extension tubes. My concern with this option is that stacking all 3 with my heavy Nikon macro lens would be rather unstable? Would it be better if I got hold of the smaller 60mm macro lens?

2) Using one of the Nikon teleconverters. Which one would be best? Does anyone know if image quality will suffer too much, bearing in mind that I will also be shooting through Perspex?

3) Attaching a Raynox diopter to the lens. Again, will image quality suffer too much?

4) Reversing a wide angle prime. Although I have never tried this before, I’ve read it’s a relatively cheap method of going beyond 1:1, whilst maintaining picture quality? Which focal length would be most appropriate for reversing? I should also add that I should be able to position the front of my lens very close to the side of the tank.

I don’t currently have any of this additional equipment to hand, so I can’t experiment with it. But I hope to be able to borrow or rent the equipment (or even buy the cheaper items).

Because the animals are free to move around the micro tanks (I want to make sure they are behaving as naturally as possible), albeit in a restricted space, I understand that going beyond 3:1 or 2:1 magnification will not be necessary because it will be very hard to maintain focus. But I would like to achieve greater magnification than 1:1 so that I don’t have to rely so heavily on cropping.

So I would be really grateful if you could let me know what you think of my options. Or is there another option that I haven’t considered, like another lens/tc/extension tube combination?

Thank you for your time (apologies for the long post!).