Make a Marine Ecosphere
If you just finished your last ecosphere but ran out of biological chemicals & have to buy new ones, that's great because you will be making more biospheres(ecospheres)!!Read on to how to create your " ocean".
Steps
- Get a jar of your choice, like a mason or pickle jar (depending on how big you want your ecosphere). Make sure it's transparent so that sunlight can pass through.
- Wash your jar for 60 seconds with only warm water as soap will kill the organisms. Then dry your jar using a towel.
- Collect sand from either the playground, or a very clean beach. Then wash it with water for 70 seconds without draining the sand. And dry it.
- Add ocean water. It can be made by mixing dechlorinated water and only ocean salt. Table salt is too poisonous to organisms in your "ocean".
- After you put sand in(about 1" deep), fill you jar with seawater,leaving about 2" of airspace on the top. Then add a small live sea rock which should have both phyto & zooplankton. Now add plants. Either buy live coral or grow algae with the sun.
- Always include small sea shells. Not only it'll stabilize pH levels, but also it stimulates the ocean floor.
- Now add animals. Buy the following organisms listed below:
- 1 peppermint shrimp
- 5 small marine hermit crabs
- 2 turbo snails
- 20-1000 plankton cells.
- After you add the animals into your jar, seal it up and never open it again. Just put on your windowsill and watch it.
Tips
- You can also buy red-tail shrimp instead of the peppermint shrimp-if your jar is slightly bigger. *It's okay if you can't buy or order a peppermint shrimp; as long as the oxygen cycle is balanced, every organism in your ecosphere will be fine
- Instead of sand you could use gravel-or both.
- You can buy ocean organisms from both carolina.com & reefscavengers.com
Warnings
- ALWAYS include a plant in your ecosphere. When making a world, you should also make a food chain(e.g. algae, zooplankton, snail, crab, & etc).
- NEVER ADD FISH. you don't want your eco-naughts eaten.
- Remember that both oxygen & nitrogen cycles HAVE to balanced.
Things You'll Need
- jar
- sand or gravel
- water,ocean salt & dechlorinator.
- small ocean live rock
- coral or other marine plant
- peppermint or red-tail shrimp( if you can easily buy it or if available)
- 5 small marine hermit crabs
- 2 turbo snails
- 20-100 plankton cells
- 1-4 sea shells
Related Articles
- Read a Nautical Chart
- Make an Ocean in a Bottle
- Set up a Marine Reef Aquarium
- Become a Marine Biologist
- Cure Red Slime Algae in Marine Aquariums
- Make a Collecting Syringe and Jar for Small Marine Invertebrates
