Week 4: All Seems Calm

The guppy seems to be bigger now. When I looked close to the bottle I can see his eyes on either side of his face. I can also see him chew minuscule pieces of plant. From an objective point he seems to swim fast and seems to be healthy. When he seems I can clearly see his frontal fins moving, which means they are big enough to see now.

The plants in the terrestrial part seems to be healthy. There is only condensation on one side of the bottle. Each bean plant seems to have grown one additional leaf aside from the big one they had before.

The plants in the water seem to have grown. At first glance they seem to take up more space than before, and they certainly seemed to take up more space than other water plants in other terrariums. The aladea and the algae have grown. The water looks rather clean, and I can see the guppy and the snails very well. My assumption is that at least one snail is alive because they were at opposite sides last week and now one of them is very close to the other snail. However looking at it neither of the snails are moving.

This time the terrarium weighed 1 kg 456.5 grams, which is lighter than before.

Week 3 Life in the Dark

Week 3: Life in the Dark

Our plants have grown exponentially. The shoots have now hit the top of the bottle, into the ridges of the bottle. Our bean plants, all three of them, have grown leaves. Each plant has one leaf, which are very green. One of the bean shells is plastered on the top of the bottle while the other rests at the bottle. The third plant still has its shell attached, but very loosely. The soil looks moist. The coloring is a dark brown.

There’s still quite a bit of condensation at this top level.

In the bottom bottle the water level looks the same with the strings attaching the top bottle to the bottom bottle looking more yellowish. Our guppy is still alive and swims at the middle of the water level. However he looks less active than before. I feel his swimming is more forlorn. Guppy also looks about the same size; it doesn’t look like he’s gotten bigger.

On one side our snail is nestled in one of the ridges of the bottom bottle. It doesn’t seem like he’s moving, but I believe he’s still alive. On the other side we have the second snail nestled into one of the ridges of the bottle. Again this one isn’t moving. Right now it’s a toss up on whether they are actually alive. We did not see the tails of our dead shrimp, so we believe that the snails finished eating them.

The weight of out terrarium is 1 kg 461 grams.

Week 2 - Spoiler Alert! Death Count Begins

Week 2 was both a sad and joyous occasion. All three of our seeds sprouted with one big enough to touch the inside of the bottle. The other two are just emerging from the soil. The condensation in the inside our bottle indicates that we are getting circulation of water. I foresee good things in the future of these plants. I hope all of them get good sunlight in the upcoming weeks.

In the aquatic section both ghost shrimp have died; their tails are floating at the bottom of the tank. The snails are not moving right now and are at the bottom with the rocks. We are assuming that these snails are the culprits of the shrimps' deaths because I've been reading that ghost shrimp may eat fish babies, not the other way around.

The guppy himself is doing fabulously. He's swimming more than first day, where we sealed him to his fate, and seems a bit plumper. It seems he has a good amount of food to keep him alive.

1 kilogram 478 grams is the weight of our ecosystem. In my opinion (hypothesis) the ecosystem will grow heavier as time goes on. The plants are expected to grow more. The water plants may also grow. The guppy himself will grow some.

Our plants are growing! The harvest begins!

Hi, guppy!

One dead shrimp, with the other somewhere close by.

And there's one snail. Hopefully alive.

"Until next time!"

Day 1 - And So a World was Born

Day 1

The actual construction of the ecosystem was more complicated than I first thought. It was the first time I created life within a bottle. I was apprehensive in cutting the bottles because I knew it was crucial that they fit together after all was said and done.

The guppy (1) was smaller than I thought. After a minute or two of being in the ecosystem it was zipping through the algae, which made it very hard to take pictures.

I have never seen ghost shrimp before. They (2) were certainly smaller than the ones I've used as bait on fishing trips. They were translucent and looked terribly fragile. I'm curious to see how much they will actually grow and how hardly they are compared to the tougher-looking guppy and snails.

The snails (2) were tiny, and I was afraid that they would not move once we dropped them in. However they soon adapted to the rocky-bottle floor. They did not seem to bump into the shrimp that were near the edges of the bottle. These snails had differently-shaped shells than the garden snails I've been used to seeing as a child. This was also the first time I've seen snails that lived in the water.

On the upper portion of the ecosystem we planted (3) pea seeds in the soil. We planted them in a triangle shape, about an inch deep, and we hope to see some growth soon.