I’m amazed. About four months ago I started this closed ecosphere not knowing much. After a few tries of failed jars, I was feeling bleak. I started this jar and like the others, it seemed to be failing. Nothing was growing. Then the life I saw inside the first few days began to disappear. It was a failure. My mom said she was fed up with my “wierd little experiments” and that they made the house look ugly and to put the jar outside with all the other failures that were blooming with algae, had become completely clouded and disgusting looking. So this jar has sat outside my house in the sunlight, in rain, storms, for the past months. I hadn’t checked it for months, but today I looked and saw it had more life than ever before. Multiple huge snails! Smaller snails too! Haven’t had a chance to take a real long look yet but I can’t believe it’s sustained itself after all this time. The jar still looks kinda ugly and seems dirty. I also don’t really see plants growing or anything, but somehow these little guys are still going!
by that-dude-chris
2 Comments
I have a question since you mentioned an algae bloom. I just started my first jar and a week later there’s a massive algae bloom and I can’t see in the jar anymore. Does this mean it failed or can I wait it out?
You a prime example for crying foul, or fail, way too early. Lemme ease your mind :).
Put it this way: you throw a bunch of stuff in a jar and want nature to balance it all out. But when it does and some of the things we added too much of, die, it’s seen as a failure.
Right there is where you gotta hit the brakes and re-direct your thinking :). The jar will go through many different cycles over time and not all of them are pretty. Some stink, some make it look cloudy, some show brown gunk etc etc.
Everything that dies is food for something else that’s needed. That’s how it works. IF you provided all the necessary key elements, then let it do it’s job.
From what I can see in the video, which is not much, but I can see you have hair algae, which means the jar is getting too much light.
How about uploading a video of the whole thing so we can give you better tips and save you and your mom some grief :).