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my reef in a bottle X2 experiment (added another one)


new-b-reefer

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so this is a tiny experiment i am doing. im hoping this proves to be a self sustaining little piece of ocean. no equipment what so ever.

materials consist of:

-small jar

-some live sand

-couple small pieces of live rock

-few strands of chaeto

-some other macro algae (was growing on a snail shell in my nc28)

-2 mini starfish

-1 pod

my thoery behind this is i have sealed the jar, live sand and rock have cycled bacteria on them, the stars and pod create waste, algae uses waste and provides small amount of oxygen and food for micro fauna. also the mini stars and pod, i am thinking they should be able to handle the low oxygen levels and lack of water movement beings the fact that these creatures are some of the hardiest of living things we come across in our aquariums and can survive a cycling tank just fine which goes through ammonia, nitrite, low oxygen, etc. also chaeto survives and can grow in almost any light i have learned and the macro that is growing on the shell (sorry i dont have an id for it) can survive still with very little ambient lighting. i know because i have tested this. i took the shell with the macro algae out of my nc28, put it in a small amount of water in a ziplock bag, sealed it and set it on a dresser for a week and a half with no lighting other than some dim ambient lighing from things around the room such as the nano cube on the other side of the room and this algae still is looking just as good as it was so i know just about any amount of light will keep this stuff alive and producing O2 as a plant should.

so far everything has done just great in the past 24 hours so far. but that is only 1 day. hope i have explained all of my thinking behind this, as i said its an experiment so we will see how it goes. i hope it goes well cause it is cool to look into this tiny spcae and be able to observe the micro fauna actively moving around and doing their thing. especially cause these creatures usually get over looked in most of our aquariums.

here are pics :)

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you could look to brookstones ecospheres for ideas on a closed and sustainable eco-system.

 

yeah, i have seen those before. really cool. havent seen them in a while though. i will do some reading. i still think this could work though. hope so ;)

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cool... so no water changes ever?

 

If you were ever curious and tested your water parameters you wouldn't have any water left :P

Cant wait to see how this goes

good luck

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Good luck with that. Sounds like a great experiment. Did you seal up that jar lid? IMO it will slowly allow air to escape along with evap. Tagging along to see how this works out.

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Good luck with that. Sounds like a great experiment. Did you seal up that jar lid? IMO it will slowly allow air to escape along with evap. Tagging along to see how this works out.

 

thanks for following and the good luck wishes everyone ;)

the jar lid has a little seal in the lid and before i screwed on the lid i iput some plastic wrap tight over it, screwed the lid on over it and trimmed the excess from the out side (mainly did this to prevent the metal lid from rusting. so it is sealed pretty well. only time will tell :)

i dont think water changes will be needed, the algae should be able to keep up with the minimal amounts of waste that the micro fauna produce.

and yes if i ever wanted to test the water... that would probably equal a 100% water change lol (which if it works out might even help in the longevity of the microecosystem (lol, just made up a new word)

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This is similar to the freshwater biospheres I've made using pond muck, plants and an Amano shrimp. My longest running sealed biosphere lasted 8 months. I've been curious about doing a saltwater biosphere, and I'll be watching this topic to see how it goes. Saltwater brings a level of complexity and some different biology to the table. The biggest challenge with a saltwater biosphere, like freshwater biospheres is finding a proper ballance. Keep us posted with the progress!

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That 1 pod is going to die. You should have put like three of them in there so they can at least have a chance of forming a sustainable population. Also a scoop of a mature sand bed for some more flora might make it a more balanced ecosystem--but who knows

 

Regardless, still really cool :happy:

 

Better be careful of that chaeto though--it might completely overrun the jar!

 

 

Oh--and those brookstone things are brackish IIRC and the shrimp they use are super hardy but very difficult (and expensive) to come by. They are called Hawaiian-something shrimp (cant remember the complete name). They can tolerate a huge range of salinities but the prefer more ocean-like levels I believe. I think brookstone purposely keeps the salinity levels sub-optimum so the shrimp are too stressed to reproduce--pretty smart business tactic lol. Those would be perfect here though!

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One of the key factors with the freshwater biospheres being sustainable is the inhabitant's diet... Algae and detritus. Many dwarf freshwater or brackish water shrimp will eat anything they can stick in their mouths.

 

And the brookstone ones are basically starvation chambers. Hawaiian volcano shrimp

Can live for years with little food. They won't grow or prosper, but they will live. Hearty little buggers.

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Wow thanks for all the input every one. Day 2 of the jar, things are still going good. The pod is active as are the stars :)

The sand bed I used was sand from a well established tank. Everything I put in the jar was from an established tank of over 2 years.

As far as the pod goes, I can add another one in there, just gotta check my chaeto in the back of my nanocube and pull another one out :) maybe open the lid and I will add one or two pods today. :)

I saw a tiny worm that hitch hiked its way in. Almost looked like a tiny bristle worm. Really small though, maybe just under 1/8 of an inch long.

I will continue to keep you all updated on the progress

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igotreefermadness

Even in those brookstone biospheres you have to be mindful of the algae ball growth. If it becomes too big it will alter the CO2 and O2 exchange too much and poison the shrimp. So I would consider atleast letting it get some gas exchange as I think the closed systems probably took a significant amount of research to balance properly.

 

Also I had one of those biospheres as a gift last year, the glass ended up breaking so I tried to put the hawaiian shrimp in my reef tank but they didnt make it unfortunately. Those would have been sweet to have.

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Yea this thing might be more of a success if you open it to the air sometimes (or even all the time) for gas exchange and to adjust things as needed (take out extra chaeto/pods/ect, add more algae/critters/etc)--just whatever needs to be done to keep this thing healthy

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Ah ok, this is all good feedback. I will see how things go. Maybe to have even the smallest amount of gas exchange, a small hole or two in the lid, to allow a very small amount of gas exchange but not expose enough to allow for a ton of evap. Not just yet though. I wanna see how this goes. The pod and stars do not require much O2 to live, other wise they wouldn't survive a cycling tank going through all the chemical swings and what not.

 

with an experiment, feedback is good :)

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I think with out any water movement the salt will settle out.. might need to give it a bit of a shack every now and then.

Nope, I have had a still solar powered pico for a few months now. It's in my sig. No salt settling

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MacheteAvenue
Nope, I have had a still solar powered pico for a few months now. It's in my sig. No salt settling

 

cool! alright good to know :P very cool little pico btw

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Oh--and those brookstone things are brackish IIRC and the shrimp they use are super hardy but very difficult (and expensive) to come by. They are called Hawaiian-something shrimp (cant remember the complete name). They can tolerate a huge range of salinities but the prefer more ocean-like levels I believe. I think brookstone purposely keeps the salinity levels sub-optimum so the shrimp are too stressed to reproduce--pretty smart business tactic lol. Those would be perfect here though!

 

I actually saw these shrimp for the first time in person about 4 days ago. A LFS in my area had several of them chilling in a pico tank for sale (about 7 each if I remember right). They were about all under a 1/2" and were really pretty cool looking. What they said though is that they are somewhat brackish/FW by nature, but they will move to SW to breed. So, really I don't think it's the salinity levels that are stopping them, just their own anatomy. Your right though that Brookstone basically found the perfect critter for this type of thing.

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