budget semi wild canadian river ecosphere

[rw519]

Lately I've been watching alot of ecosphere and jarrarium videos and decided to give this venture a go. Originally I wanted to use only native plants found here in my canadian river system but with minus weather already here most plants have disappeared. I put in some spike rush and common pond weed when I first set it up but they both melted away after a week or so..I wonder if it will come back in the spring? 🤔 In the meantime, I decided to replace with dwarf sag and salvinia auriculata as these are hardy low maintenance plants I think might do well. I guess only time will tell.

I've added 1 root tab to this river pond muck like substrate, added a pinch of crushed eggshells spirilina powder and bakers yeast in the water column which has kinda cleared but other than that I dont plan on opening it again until spring when I will either actually scape and reseal it with common aquaria if it fails or hopefully only have to do a water change at most with more river water and maybe net some micro inverts.

The jar and light are from the local dollar store at $4 each and the sag and salvinia came from tissue cultures I ordered online and arrived in rough shape. Overall I've invested roughly $50. Official seal date - nov 01/2021.

I'm curious what if anything will hatch out in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed 🤞

I will update pics in 2 weeks

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by rw519
added pics

[Guppysnail]

This looks very cool. Maybe it’s just me but how does it get oxygen and if it doesn’t wont it get anaerobic and toxic? I’ve never seen a sealed one so please forgive my ignorance 

[rw519]

On 11/1/2021 at 12:25 PM, Guppysnail said:

This looks very cool. Maybe it’s just me but how does it get oxygen and if it doesn’t wont it get anaerobic and toxic? I’ve never seen a sealed one so please forgive my ignorance 

Honest answer, I have no idea..lol.

I'm hoping the salvinia will keep the water decent but with limited oxygen supply? 🤔  i think the trick is sealing it after the waters cleared. one video had valesneria and duckweed still going after 2 years of being sealed, every other plant died (which was heavily planted btw) and multiple algae blooms and die off. Dwarf sag is similar and smaller so why not try it out. I'm worried about the salvinia though, it didnt ship well at all. I might have to replace it with duckweed if it dies off but it's a rather invasive plant so I dunno.

This whole things more of a science experiment of what can survive such conditions rather than trying to keep things alive. Youd be surprised how hardy these bladder snails and inverts can be assuming I scooped some up. We shall see!

[Guppysnail]

Bladder snails I believe could survive a nuclear Holocaust! 🤣. Please keep us posted. I find this incredibly interesting