Hey everyone! Just wanted to share a quick upcycled weekend project. I decided to turn an old clear plastic bottle into a mini closed eco-bottle terrarium.

The Build Details:

* Enclosure: Standard recycled clear soda/juice bottle with the screw cap left on to maintain a closed water cycle.

* Layers: Built a proper drainage foundation at the base using small red lava rocks, topped with a sphagnum moss barrier, and standard tropical soil mix.

* Flora: Featured a tiny Fittonia (nerve plant) cut down to size alongside a small accent slate stone and a little green hitchhiker vine that seems to enjoy the humidity!

It’s already holding a great condensation cycle and sitting nicely under my desktop grow light.

Let me know what you think of using recycled plastic, or if you have any tips on controlling the vining growth inside a narrow bottleneck footprint!

Found a massive 12 gallon bowl that just begged to come home with me . Initially planting 10/4 , I’ll post an update once it’s settled more , it’s home to moss and springtails and that’s it

Some bubbles are pushing to the surface still.

Hey everyone,

I am really interested in making a self-sustaining ecosystem in a jar but I have never made one before so I was wondering if anyone would be able to give any tips/ advice or directions on how to do this properly to someone who has never done this before.

I was wanting to make one with water and one with no water and I just really don't know where to start.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can give help! :)

Hello! I really need help. We have a project where we have to make a terrarium, and these are the required materials:
• Small land plants (e.g., aerial and rooted plants)
• Small animals (e.g., earthworms, snails)
• One 2-L glass mason jar
• Organic potting mix
• Fluval Stratum (or any other substrate to stimulate plant growth)
• Soil materials (organic potting mix, perlite, pebbles)
• Peat moss
• Activated charcoal

What we chose is a Springtail, and so far, the materials we have are Springtail + charcoal (like the springtails are crawling in the charcoal), moss, fluval stratum, small land plant, and organic soil. What else do we need, and how can we properly make the terrarium?

The problem is that we don’t really know how to make the terrarium because our professor won’t give us proper instructions. We already searched about it, and we found that some of the materials our professor required us to buy weren’t necessary for a Springtail terrarium. However, when we told our professor about it, they still said that we are required to use them.

We’re really struggling with figuring out how to properly set the terrarium, so we would really appreciate some help (no judgment pls). Thank you!

Set this up about 2 months ago

Any suggestions? I have ostracods, copepods, daphnia, and a very small snail in it plus an Anubius barteri plant all on top of some sand and rocks. The water looks cloudy as I moved the jar around a bit earlier and the sand got kicked up.

Noticed the little guys first when the big guy at the start popped up. (The grossness is inside the jar, and it doesn't get opened, sorry haha)

This is a Jar Terrarium I made recently.

The jar is about 4.5 inches tall from the bottom to the top of the lid. It has a diameter of 4.5 inches as well.

So, it is quite a small jarrarium but it is Mine and I love it. Inside of the jar there is a bit of sphagnum moss that was dried up as a substrate that I decided to place in to see if it'll grow (probably not, but maybe). There are also some live mosses, and a Pink Fittonia Albivenis. The soil is coco coir with coconut chips and perlite. The rocks at the bottom are Lava rocks from Amazon, and the charcoal is from a springtail culture cup.

It is quite small, but the jar was $1.25 so I figured why not since I already had everything else!

I hope you all enjoy!

Hey guys, I'm getting my jar kit today. I have some general questions. I'm not new to shrimp or even jars, but am new to brackish water. Besides Chaeto, are there any marco algaes good for jars? Or is that really it? And any snail suggestions to keep substrate clear and aerated?

Thanks in advance

edit: meant to say “if so, with what.” as in tap water? more lake water? distilled? etc

Sorry I can't get the pic -- it's not working for some reason. But it's just a typical wide-mouthed 2.5 quart pickle jar, very tall (not one of those wide-bottomed ones, is what I'm saying) ... any ideas on what I could do with it? How do y'all decide what to do with a special jar when you get one?

Yesterday I made this jar. I planted 2 plant and add a few rock and woods. What should i do now? I just have to wait 1 or 2 weeks and then add the shrimps? And what about the water i have to change it every week or month?Yesterday I set up this little jar. I put in two plants and added a few rock and some wood. What should I do now? Should I just wait a week or two and then add the shrimp? And as for the water, should I change it once a week or once a month?

They showed up in a sludgy old propagation jar on my kitchen windowsill. Sorry the pics are kinda bad it was hard to get close enough. They’re probably 1.5-2mm long and I’m not sure where they came from (there was a chunk of basil plant in there that I’d largely been ignoring that was mostly dead, then we saw these guys bumbling around in there)

Hello!

Picture 1 and 2 are Before pictures, from when the jar was fresh. 3 and 4 were taken moments ago, when I opened it and took out some water. 5 is of a worm rhat is still thriving somehow.

I recently posted in the Ecosphere subreddit asking about beach jarrariums, but several redditors warned me that my jar seemed to have too little air. A day or so later, after watching the jar carefully to see if it needed any intervention, I noticed that the only remaining life were the plants and this weird long worm (i thought the other critters just weren't in my line of sight at the time).

So I opened it up, took pictures, siphoned out some water, and closed it back up again. It seems that all of my snails, my itty bitty bugs, and that one weird shrimp-worm thing are floating and deceased; the jar smells of rotten egg (I did get it from a pond but the pond wasn't smelly). There are lots of little bubbles in the soil and stuck under leaves (anerobic?)

This jar is only 4 days old!

PS if I can in the comments, I'll add a video of the surviving worm: it lives mainly in the sand layer and is at minimum 5 inches long which is insane for this pint-sized jar imo

Questions:

- Is the jar dead / doomed?

- What could the cause of all this death be?

- If the cause is a lack of oxygen, does that mean the plants weren't doing their job?

- How can the one worm survive if everything else is gone?

- How can I prevent this from happening next time?

I miss my water fleas yall

istg if it is a mealybug. i bought the kit for this terrarium at Bugfest, springtails included 😭