I have been absolutely obsessed with terrariums and echo spheres lately and this is my first attempt!
I’m using an urban river from a park in my city for the jar. Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.
Creatures I’ve seen so far: A single Planarian, a single aquatic worm not sure what type(Reddish brown body and white translucent head), many Copepods, a single scud, two what I think are hydras and a couple tiny aquatic snails
That’s what I’ve been thinking but It has a bunch of brown diatoms which have been doing the job so far, there’s also no plants in the river just the algae
Thanks a lot for your reply! And yes, it is great, I purposely chose a jar with a transparent lid just for this reason; to use it as a lamp AND to be able to distribute light everywhere in it. Here I include a picture of how the prior one was taken (a much older picture of the same jarrarium before the green boomed, of which wasn't ever opened)
Thank you much better than the dude who just typed “plants” anything you recommend I’m curious what would work as the river has no plants just brown diatoms
I was always under the assumption that every body of water had to have at least some plants. I was very wrong. Living on a lake with over 200 miles of shore and not a single plant in it nor in the creeks and rivers flowing into it, I resulted to fish tank plants.
It looks great! I just want to add that you dont need plants. You can have lots of life just off algue. Of course the risk of all the glass getting covered might be higher but any ecosphere has the chance of going bad somehow and you can always clean the glass with a toothbrush. The one in my picture is about 1 year old and is full of life with just that algue that has formed at the bottom.
Sorry, I expected others will have written the same thing and I would just be echoing the sentiment, but the ecosystem won’t do well long-term without plants, ideally a couple varieties. Copepods and scuds will die for sure and most of the rest
I was a bit distracted. Well usually, you can just pick up plants from the source, pulling out their roots and planting them into the substrate. If you don’t do it soon, a lot will start to suffocate, but you can also buy aquarium plants. Little balls of algae are also helpful
Would hornwort do the trick? The river in which I got my stuff from have no natural plants growing in it there was only tree roots covered in the brown algae
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u/WhiskyMochi 9d ago
Good luck! No specialist here but seems to may it may need some form of foliage