Have you recently had the luxury of enjoying our terrarium teambuilding session? If you haven’t, you definitely should because not only it is a fun bonding activity amongst a group; you also have your own lovely jar to bring home. But for those of you who already had the experience of taking care and making a terrarium, how about I propose to you a new challenge? Try out the Ecosphere, a much more advanced close terrarium.
There are infinite variations to the ecosphere, which is an alternative, more complex form of a closed terrarium. It really depends on what you want to put inside the terrarium. You will choose which ecosystem you want to import into your terrarium, and by ecosystem, we mean both flora and fauna of the particular environment.
The concept is simple; just go to an ecosystem, like a river in Pulau Ubin and get your building materials for your ecosphere there instead of the regular charcoal, soil and coloured stones that we provide for you. Get the water and soil; these are the essentials for this project.
The ecosphere making is a fun process for you, in a very different way from our team building experience. You could go together alone or with family, friends and colleagues to a natural setting in Singapore like a day out. Bring along a few containers, so that you can store the rocks, soil and the water of a –particular spot of the ecosystem. The idea is for the ecosphere to be self-sustaining because it is ‘home’ with everything it should need. Also, don’t take more than you need, or else you might destroy the environment.
Once your back, put some smashed charcoal bits into the jar as the bottom-most layer in the terrarium. This is to allow the dirty particles to sink to the bottom-most layer in the jar. Then nicely arrange the stuff you brought back from the ecosystem starting with the soil. As you pour in the water you got from the river, the water in the jar would appear very cloudy, but it is no issue, just simply seal the ecosphere and let everything settle down for like 1-2 days. Once the particles settle on the bed of the jar, the animals will start to reveal themselves. You might see snails, shrimps or other kinds of unique insects. This is like all dependent on your own luck.
From time to time you may need to do some maintenance. For example, if there is an overgrowth of algae inside the jar, you should definitely get some out of it out. Otherwise, the algae can suffocate the entire ecosystem. And if you realize you got a fish in the jar but no food for it because let’s face it, you cannot possibly replicate the whole ecosystem in just one tiny jar, so you have to bring in an alternate food source from outside to keep the fish alive. Other than that, it should behave like a closed terrarium, not really needing much attention since it does not even need watering.
Honestly, this is very complicated work and my article wouldn’t be enough to do it well. So if you want to really work on this, it is my advice that you do your own research too. Youtube and Google should have lots of tips for you. Good luck!