Self Sustaining Ecosystem v. Build Thread

[Chino]

Edit: 4/03/2014

Project starts on post#23.





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I'm looking for something as similar to this as I can find. I wouldn't even know where to start looking.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2267504/The-sealed-bottle-garden-thriving-40-years-fresh-air-water.html

[rogerdil]

Wal-Mart and Target have 2-gallon glass, but not that shape.  Can get weird shaped glass at HomeGoods and Michael's but usually not large enough.

[gmillerdrake]

You may try some antique stores? I don't know for certain but that is a cool article. Pretty remarkable and neat. Good luck tracking something like that down. Are you going to try the same application, a sealed off environment?

[black_biff_stadler]

I've created Lutherans!

[carl320]

You may try some antique stores?

This.  My brother used to buy glass jars and bowls at antique shops.  Not sure how easy it would be to get something that big though.

[Chino]

You may try some antique stores? I don't know for certain but that is a cool article. Pretty remarkable and neat. Good luck tracking something like that down. Are you going to try the same application, a sealed off environment?

I want to do the exact same thing. I've done scaled down versions of this in years past with light bulbs up to the size of a softball. They're really cool.

[rumborak]

You should have read the article a bit better. Those glass vessels are called carboys, and a quick search for "glass carboy" already turned up a lot of results:

https://www.google.com/search?q=10+gallon+carboy&aq=f&oq=10+gallon+carboy&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=glass+carboy&hl=en&tbo=u&source=univ&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=2dMFUdGiHc-50QH854DgAg&ved=0CEYQsxg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41524429,d.dmQ&fp=c7e682ab8bcf7c59&biw=1600&bih=767

[Chino]

You should have read the article a bit better. Those glass vessels are called carboys, and a quick search for "glass carboy" already turned up a lot of results:

https://www.google.com/search?q=10+gallon+carboy&aq=f&oq=10+gallon+carboy&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=glass+carboy&hl=en&tbo=u&source=univ&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=2dMFUdGiHc-50QH854DgAg&ved=0CEYQsxg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41524429,d.dmQ&fp=c7e682ab8bcf7c59&biw=1600&bih=767

  thanks. Idk how I missed that. I think my peripheral vision saw "sulphuric acid" and skipped right over it.

[jasc15]

I didnt know carboys were that shape.  Ive seen them used in beer brewing, but they have always been more cylindrical in shape.

I saw this story posted on facebook the other day, but couldnt find anything to verify it.  Thanks for posting.

[Chino]

I didnt know carboys were that shape.  Ive seen them used in beer brewing, but they have always been more cylindrical in shape.

I saw this story posted on facebook the other day, but couldnt find anything to verify it.  Thanks for posting.

Maybe they used a different style in the 60s.

[Chino]

I love the quote at the end.

Organic gardener Bob Flowerdew was less enthusiastic.
‘It’s wonderful but not for me, thanks. I can’t see the point. I can’t smell it, I can’t eat it,’ he said. Mr Latimer agrees the bottle garden is ‘incredibly dull in that it doesn’t do anything’

It only demonstrates the very essence of life and how so many elements of the planet are reliant on each other. To me, this is far cooler than any potted plant.


Sidebar: All the Spiderwort species I've been looking up look nothing like the stuff in this article.

[El Barto]

Carboys are that shape. The globular ones are demijohns.  I gather they're used in brewing and fermenting. 

[Chino]

So after more than a year of saying I wanted to do this, I just ordered myself a 5 gallon carboy, some rubber stoppers, and some airlocks. I also ordered a few different species of seeds. Everything should be in some time next week.

[jasc15]

Do you have a plan, or are you just going to add the stuff and see what happens?

I feel that if i tried this, I would set up several carboys with slightly different environments to hedge against one of them failing.  Though, in reality I would probably just end up doing a single one.

[El Barto]

I wonder what would happen if you threw a couple of leaf-cutter ants into that thing. If it's truly a self-sustaining ecosystem then the ants would survive; thrive I suspect. They'd wipe out the flora and most would starve off. I'd be curious if they reached a balance after a few years or if the cycle just rebounded back in forth with the ants and plants taking turns being dominant.

[Chino]

Do you have a plan, or are you just going to add the stuff and see what happens?

I feel that if i tried this, I would set up several carboys with slightly different environments to hedge against one of them failing.  Though, in reality I would probably just end up doing a single one.

I'm not entirely sure yet. I have 50 seeds of 4 different species coming and am thinking about approaching this in one of two ways.

1)  I have dozens of pots in my garage and was planning on putting a dozen or seeds from each species in each pot. In some pots I will mix the species. After several weeks I will see which plants are doing the best and assume that those are the heartiest/most likely to survive. They will all be growing under controlled conditions in my basement. I can't let them get too big though, or else they'll be difficult to get in the carboy (This may prove to be problematic regardless what size they are).

2)  Germinate as many seeds as I can, start filling the carboy with soil, randomly dropping seeds at different depths, and hope for the best. Whichever seed is the strongest and most likely to survive will prevail.

I might go with method number 2, but grow some potted ones anyway. That way, when I'm ready to plug the carboy up, I'll have a bunch of plants I could kill and drop in prior. That will be in hopes of giving bacteria something to initially feed on and hopefully start generating some C02 in the sealed bottle. Whichever method I end up doing, I probably wont seal the carboy until the plant is fairly established and healthy.

I would really love it if I could get some sort of insect or organism (any kind would be awesome) that could live off the environment as well. It'd need to be able to reproduce fairly easily. Ants would be cool, but they require a queen for reproducing. I think it would be fantastic if, hypothetically speaking, 50 years from now I had a self sustaining ecosystem with plants and organisms that are of true genetic lines.

Any input would be very cool.

[Chino]

I wonder what would happen if you threw a couple of leaf-cutter ants into that thing. If it's truly a self-sustaining ecosystem then the ants would survive; thrive I suspect. They'd wipe out the flora and most would starve off. I'd be curious if they reached a balance after a few years or if the cycle just rebounded back in forth with the ants and plants taking turns being dominant.

You typed this as I was typing my last reply. I don't think ants would go more than a generation without a queen :/

[El Barto]

I think there are some species of ants that will produce a queen under such circumstances, but I suspect you're right. That said, you can buy queen ants online.

As for pure genetics, that will actually become your biggest issue. A good friend had an aquarium (which I now operate) that he stocked with the always popular Neolamprologus brichardi. These guys are awesome breeders because they actually pool together and develop generational layers. This continued for 15 or so years with an innumerable number of fish at any given time. 'Round that time they started developing genetic mutations due to the constant inbreeding. He only started with 6 or 8 fish, and presumably they were all from the same genetic stock. The mutations in this case were detrimental, rather than beneficial, and they turned into freaks and died.

[Chino]

I remember you telling that story in the Home Aquariums thread.

As far as I can tell. You are not allowed to purchase queens online in the United States. Also, I think a successful ant colony may need way more room than a 5 gallon carboy. I wonder if there are any other species that would work. Maybe millipede, slugs, or beetles.

[Dr. DTVT]

I think it would be hard to introduce an animal to it.  They would feed off the plants, and probably faster than the plants could grow.

[El Barto]

I think it would be hard to introduce an animal to it.  They would feed off the plants, and probably faster than the plants could grow.

That's what I figure, but depending on the type of plant, couldn't the root structure start flowering anew once the ant population dies off enough to cease being a threat?

Also, I think a successful ant colony may need way more room than a 5 gallon carboy. I wonder if there are any other species that would work. Maybe millipede, slugs, or beetles.

Perhaps, but I don't know if ant colonies must expand or if they can settle to a confined area.

Maybe ladybugs.

Not arguing that this would work, mind you. Just curious if it's possible.

[Chino]

I was really curious about worms. I could stick shovel in my lawn any time after April and find dozens of them. I've read that night crawlers can live 6-9 years in the wild, and almost two decades in captivity.

Edit*

After stumbling across this article... I'm totally putting a dozen or so worms in this thing...especially after pages 4,5, and 6. Page 7 is a little scary.
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/earthworm.htm

[Zook]

YEAH, SCIENCE BETCH!!!!!

[Chino]

Got a delivery today!!

[Chino]

After 5 days.

[El Barto]

I've thought about doing this, but I can't spend the money on an interesting bottle right now. If I were going to do it I'd want something more than 5 gallons, and just a plain carboy probably wouldn't interest me much. That giant demijohn the guy had in the first post was great, but expensive and very hard to find.

I was also giving some thought to lighting. Since LEDs have come so far, I was pondering wiring up the cork with enough of them to light it from within. Plenty of people manufacture LED grow lights now, so it's just a matter of working out the proper number of various colors to get a natural light in there.

[Chino]

I think this particular bottle looks pretty good for the price. I couldn't find anything much bigger than a 6.5 gallon. If this proves to work, I wouldn't be opposed to starting a really crazy one in a few years.

The LED lighting thing is a cool thought, and I've actually thought about doing it with this, but not quite the way your described. Your idea would actually work really well if you didn't have a window that it could be placed near. I'd be concerned of the lighting concentration being to direct/small focal point. I don't think there would be enough coverage.

I also ended up putting four worms in the thing. Three of them burrowed, and the fourth ripped itself in half, and half of it burrowed  . The other half died and is rotting at the surface. Even if they all eventually die, having a couple worms allowing that soil to breath will hopefully better the chances of success in the early stages.

[Dr. DTVT]

I felt like I had to fix your picture.

[Chino]

I don't get it, but thanks! 

[Chino]

Second plant finally sprouted!!
 
 

https://carboyecosystem.blogspot.com/2014/04/self-sustained-ecosystem-in-carboy.html

[puppyonacid]

I noted that you haven't plugged yours at the top whereas the one in the original story was plugged with a rubber bung.

Is that deliberate? I'm curious as that's one of the things that I found really interesting in that the atmosphere inside the original is entirely self contained and sealed in.

Just curious. Looks like it's coming along well either way 

[puppyonacid]

Sorry my bad. I shoulda read your blog first 

[Chino]

The man in the original story plugged his after the plant already started growing. I fully intend to do so once my plants are a little more established. My fear is that if I plug it up now, as the plant grows, it will deplete the amount of CO2 in the carboy. I'd like to allow the plant some time to actually start losing leaves and observe some decomposition. My theory is that if I wait until this point, I can seal the top knowing full well that CO2 is already being replenished. It will also allow the bacteria colonies to grow and establish themselves before I seal them off for all of eternity (or until one of my grandchildren manage to break the bottle). I'm no biologist, and the only thing I've ever done closely related to this is cycle a few fish tanks. I'm more or less winging this with general knowledge of how nature works. Fingers crossed.

I debated sealing it up from the beginning, but I thought this would be the ecosystems best chance at survival. I wouldn't be opposed to trying another one in the future in which I plug it up from the get go.

I noticed this morning that a third seedling has begun sprouting. I'll update the blog tonight!!

[gmillerdrake]

This is pretty cool. I checked out your Blog....it'll be neat to watch it progress. You've kind of inspired me to think about trying this myself. Being that we are moving into a new home soon I started thinking it'd be neat to get one of these set up to kind of mark the 'year' we moved in to the new home and if it were to survive and thrive it'd be tied to the move.

Anyway.....I hope this turns out good for you.

[Chino]

So my girlfriend and I dropped in on the closing minutes of a tag sale yesterday and found two more carboys. The guy only wanted $20 for the pair. That's not terrible seeing as the first one cost $40 with shipping.

We also found this cool mason jar thing that looked kind of old. We had a little fun with that.