Compostarium 2.5 is now a month old.

It’s FINALLY working. Not only are the plants still alive, they’re actually growing! 😃 Seems like keeping the oxygen producing plants in a separate jar from the compost with a straw connecting the air supplies was the right decision. It’s hard to say whether or not choosing to make the oxygen producing side aquatic made any difference, but I believe it did. It makes sense to me that it would be very difficult for contaminants produced from the compost side to travel up through the air, then through the straw, then down through the air on the oxygen producing side, and then finally diffuse in the much thicker water medium. If version 2.5 keeps doing well for at least a year, I might consider restarting with a bog-like saturated soil setup and then finally fully terrestrial plants in the oxygen producing side. Although not strictly necessary, I decided to add a little more soil to the compost side to hopefully breathe some new life into it. My reasoning for doing so is because I would assume that the trial error process leading up to this point likely killed off most of the soil ecology in the compost side. So, hopefully I’ll start seeing nematodes or something by next month. Mold and bacteria alone should work, but some detritivorous animals would be even better. Of course, since I don’t think I have to worry much about this project failing anymore, buying some springtails could also be a viable option. Lastly, I also decided to add a new piece of banana peel since the previous one looked thoroughly broken down. You can see it right at the end of the vid. I guess that’s it. See you all next time! 😁

by BusierMold58