Hey everyone.

I want to talk to you a little bit about closed jar terrariums. Basically, you create a small ecosystem within a jar that has three main things: producers, consumers and decomposers. Once you have those three in their, you seal it shut for good. No food, no additional water, just those three things. This way, you create a natural balance within the jar, so that for life to go, all you need is sunlight.

Now, there are some challenges involved because you need to make sure that you have the proper species of plant and animal, or else you are doomed from the start.

For the plants, any freshwater aquatic plant will do. With the proper amount of soil and decomposers, they can help bring food and filtration to the system. For your consumers, you want to choose a species of that eats plants and gives live young. If you choose a fish that lays eggs, the decomposers will eat them, causing them not to reproduce, thus ending the cycle. For the decomposers, you want a creature like snails or shrimp. They will eat the poop and dead consumers, and return that to the soil, thus restarting the cycle.

Now the tricky part is getting the balance right. I've attempted to create one myself, but all of my consumers died one month later. I believe that I chose fish that were too big for the jar, because I could only fit 6, two males and four females. The two males died after two weeks at the same time, which meant that there was no chance of reproduction. I think if I have smaller fish, I can have more in there, which means that if a few die without reproducing first, then the experiment can continue. Plus the added biodiversity is always good.

Has anyone else tried this before? Or perhaps, does anyone want to try this now? I'd be willing to do it again if I had people to share results with.