Yesterday started out raining with predictions via weather channel that it would stay that way all day. In the afternoon it started clearing up and by early evening it was perfect outside.
I decided it would be a great day to visit my secret place and to even mark off one more thing on my 2009 List. I grabbed some books (reading and sketchbook), an IKEA jar and my camera. Once I got there the water was pretty high and I couldn’t clearly see the bottom, probably due to the rain earlier in the day.. After spending some time enjoying my surroundings and then reading, I got my jar out. I gathered a little bit of water from here and there.
Last winter I was very inspired to create my own ecosphere after doing some research online here and there. When I went back to reread some of the same information I was sad to see that most of the articles had been removed.
I DID NOT PLAN the song that is playing in the background! When I watched the video the first time I was cracking up that first lyrics you hear just happen to be “I am an american aquarium drinker”. That was not planned, but how perfect? Let me just state clearly that I am not an american aquarium drinker nor do I encourage such behavior, lol.When I gathered the water, I wanted to get a lot of life, so I scooped real deep and still found the water to be mostly clear. It took a few attempts of gathering some here and there.
When I had my final collection I was a bit dissapointed, thinking that it didn’t seem like I would have much of a chance of finding life in my jar. Upon closer examination I was quite surprised. I have at least 3 snails, at least one little brine shrimp-like creature, some worm-like swimmers, and plenty of little bugs that are probably water fleas.
This morning when I woke up and looked at the jar more, I saw a snail has laid eggs on the side of the jar. I immediately recognized from my own old fishtanks.
Now I need to do research again to figure out where I should keep this (full, partial or no sunlight), if I should empty out more water (there doesn’t seem to be lots of air space at the top) and if I should make sure to keep it closed permanently (as long as it’s still going) or if occasionally opening it will do no harm.
Cool! But here’s a stupid question…don’t you need more plants in there to make oxygen for the ecosystem?
Speaking of aquarium drinker, I did just that when I was little. NOT ON PURPOSE. At all. My brother was helping me drain our fish tank by sucking on a large hose and then emptying the water into a pan. It was a LARGE fish tank so just tipping it and dumping it wasn’t an option. He showed me how to use the hose but didn’t tell me when to remove it from my mouth and point it to the basin so the water didn’t get in my mouth. Well…the water DID get in my mouth. So gross.
By the way – I want one. What a great idea. Hooray for little kid science!