Ecospheres

[Dave Gray]

I have a hobby where I'm making these things called Ecospheres.  It's easy and essentially free and you don't really have to maintain them.  I recommend doing it for your own enjoyment, but especially if you have kids.

The idea is that you're creating a self-sustaining, self-balancing environment in a glass jar.

You can pretty much use any airtight container made of glass, like pickle jars.  The larger you go, the more likely the environment will live longer, because changes in the conditions are less major with the more water you have.

There really isn't a wrong way to do it, but in general, for best results:

- Put about 1/4 or less of dirt from a nearby water source.  (Still water, like a pond or canal, is likely to have more biodiversity than running water, like a stream.)
- Put about 1/2 of water from the source.
- Leave about 1/4 for air, to allow for gas transfer.
- Add whatever aquatic plants, planted or floating, that you can gather.

You can also try other things, like for example, I added pothos, which exists out of the water, but the roots live in the water.  I added a clip of a few different kinds of aquarium plants.

In general, avoid:
- extra organic material, like leaves, fine silty mud, sticks.
- any large organism (any size fish, large insects) -- they have too high a bioload.

Leave the jar open for a couple of days while everything settles, then seal the jar forever.

It can't really go wrong, since it's an experiment, but basically, the jar will reach a balance.  Plants will fight for nutrients and the ones that don't win out will decay.  Small organisms will sprout, eggs will hatch, these things will eat the decay and each other.  Plants will make oxygen, animals will make carbon dioxide, decay and death will create nitrates, plants will use the nitrates for fertilizer.

There are hundreds of little critters in my sealed jar that weren't in there before.  It's been fully airtight for about a year.

The only thing you have to do once you close it is to try to manage the amount of algae.  You need enough light to allow some algae to grow on the glass for the shrimp and isopods to eat.  But too much algae will cause a bloom that eats up the oxygen in the jar.   I have mine in a windowsill with closed blinds....it gets light but not direct sunlight.

The one I have was from a canal near my house and I added clipping of various aquarium plants and a pothos vine.

I am starting another one with ocean water, sand from the shore, and seaweed and algae -- I may still try to find some more plants before I commit to it being sealed for good.

I also have plans for:
A brackish water one
One that includes both land and water elements
One that is curated with carefully planted grasses, aquarium shrimp, and cultivated plants.

But, super easy and something I wish I have been doing my whole life.  It's essentially free.  I have been purchasing containers from Homegoods -- the kind that have a rubber gasket and clamp that you'd use on your kitchen counter to store flour.  But you can use anything from a Snapple bottle to a mayonnaise jar to a large pickled egg container and larger.

Let me know if anyone else tries this.  I would like to share results.

Additionally, people find water from all kinds of weird places that yield results, like melting giant icicles from their roof in the winter, from puddles in the street, etc -- you really can't go wrong.   These can last many, many years and eventually when the balance gets off and you reach total death, you can just dump it and start again.

[Dave Gray]

An update, for anyone who gives a crap:

I have made two more ecospheres.

One was saltwater -- I went to the beach, got some sand and really any kinds of things I could find around the area: barnacles on drift wood, algae off the pier, some seeds I found on the dune, seaweed, etc.  It hasn't worked out for me at all.  I learned after the fact that there really isn't a lot of sealife in the surf that's going to do well in this system.  First off, there are fewer organisms and eggs in the moving water of the shore and what's there probably needs a lot of current to survive.  Bascially, the jar seems dead.  It's been a few months and while the whole thing started super clear and crisp, it's not all gross and filmy and everything is pink.  I'm still holding out that there may be some life that sprouts up when everything decays, but so far it's just nothingness.  When I try this again, I'm going to have to find a place where there isn't a lot of motion to the water, like a cay or something.  Also, I need sea vegetation that's alive and doesn't require current to feed.  I don't know where I'll find that but I think for this to succeed, I'll have to try something else.  Saltwater is hard.

I did one with brackish water as well, knowing that the saltwater wasn't doing well.  I did something interesting.  I found a jar that can fit a margarita glass inside of it.  I filled the marganita glass up with dirt from the mangroves, plus some terrestrial seeds, plants and weeds.  I got brackish water and mud from the mangrove swamp and filled the jar around the margarita glass up to about 1" of clearance.  I wasn't able to find any aquatic plants, but I'm hoping the terrestrial plants create oxygen for the exchange.  It's been roughly a month and since then, there's been some balancing out...the weeds seemed to get kinda moldy, but some of the other plants have done well.  Up until 2 days ago, the water seemed dead, but then these little critters have been popping up.  I have only seen a few so far, but they move like shrimp.  However, they look more like insects with a bunch of legs or antennae on both ends.  So, I would call this a success so far.

I still intend to curate an ecosphere as well, with carefully chosen plants, animals and environment and see how that does.