Small Fish, Big Pond

End of the EcoSphere
Originally uploaded by Kerensky97

Today I dumped last years ecosphere back into the water from whence it came. Although with the Jordan river at flood levels right now the sandbar that the "tidal pools" that the life came from is completely submerged. But it seems fitting to dump it back like this since the life has struggled so long that dumping it into the garden and letting it die would be a tragedy.

The backstory:
Last year for fun/as an experiment I made a second homemade ecosphere using the knowledge I had gained from the first one the year before. The goal would be to get a Vertebrate (small fish) to live in a balanced, self contained world over the winter for 6-12 months. The fish from the first ecosphere lasted 2 weeks. This little guy made it 8 months but unfortunately died too early to be released back into the wild.
Life went on for the tons of snails, moss, and algae; however the crustacean protozoa never came back after the fish died.

Anyway today was the first time this separate world mixed it’s air and water with ours in nearly 11 months. Perhaps some of the life will survive to continue on in the Jordan River ecosystem in the future.


Go there now.

tags: ecosphere, homemade