The first pick is from a few days in and the second pic was the day before I decided to dump it out. It started pretty well in the beginning, the sediment cleared in a day or two and creatures were very active but there was this haze that stayed in the water. Creatures kept moving around and I saw some oxygen bubbles on plant leaves so I thought it was good but I came back from class one day and the water had like a black tint to it. I figured it would go away so I let it keep going but it got worse, eventually all the plants got covered in this black soot like stuff and died and I watched for 10ish minutes and saw zero movement.
by Jlbman10
5 Comments
Your organics to water ratio is way off, it should be like 90% open water, everything in there is rotting and dying during the balancing phase
The other thing I would do when first starting a jar is allow gas exchange for everything to equilibrate. Only seal it after it stabilizes.
How long did you wait before closing it?
I’ve brought back jars looking worse than this after correcting what threw it off balance.
In your case I would have removed some of the decaying stuff, leave more airspace and add fresh plants. Lots of them, rooted ones.
I believe there must have been a lot of organic matter, like dry leaves or other excess things, which releases ammonia into the water that ends up killing the animals. Besides reducing the amount of water, I recommend leaving the container open for a while during the first few days to allow it to stabilize.