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ysabetwordsmithToday I collected some microfauna and added them to the antique jar terrarium. I think I got about a dozen isopods, which are locally called pillbugs, and in other places may be called woodlice, sowbugs, potato bugs, roly-polies, and so on. I also caught a couple of tiny millipedes, two earthworms, and maybe some springtails. See Part 1: Washing, Drainage, and Barrier, Part 2: Mixing Substrate, Part 3: Adding Mosses, Part 4: Dead Wood and Leaf Litter, Part 5: Microfauna.
Note: This post contains pictures of small creepy-crawlers. If that's not your idea of fun, skip it.
This is the starting point of the antique jar terrarium after Part 4: Dead Wood and Leaf Litter.
One of the larger land snails was crawling on the glass.
These are a few of the pillbugs I caught. Three of them are curled tight. The fourth is running like hell. It continued to do laps the whole time I was trying to take pictures. I suspect these are two different species as the dark gray ones are curled into spheres while the mottled brown one is running and has slightly flared edges on its carapace.
I originally collected them in a deep cup with a white inside. Here I've placed a few into a plain white frisbee. It gives them a little room to spread out but has a rim to contain them, and most things show up well against the pale background.
The fourth one is actually capable of conglobation, it just prefers to run instead. I hope that I managed to get multiples of each type. I know I got a bunch of the dark gray ones, but I'm not sure about the lighter brown kind that runs.
I used the small spatula to scrape back the leaf litter, then used the cardboard funnel to dump all the microfauna more-or-less toward that back area. Some landed on the moss. Here you can see the two earthworms and one of the dark gray pillbugs.
Then I put the leaf litter back where it was. You can still see one of the earthworms trying to burrow through the central moss.
If you look toward the right where the leaf litter meets the moss, you can see that one pillbug running around the edge.
This is the terrarium with microfauna in place, and indeed, you can see one running around the front.
These are from another experiment I started yesterday:
This is the cup of sphagnum moss that I'm trying to culture. Starting with a bag of dried sphagnum moss, I wet it and wrung it out until damp, then put it in a cup.
I put the lid on the cup loosely and set the cup on a high shelf where it will get indirect light. It will be interesting to see if anything grows.
Note: This post contains pictures of small creepy-crawlers. If that's not your idea of fun, skip it.
This is the starting point of the antique jar terrarium after Part 4: Dead Wood and Leaf Litter.
One of the larger land snails was crawling on the glass.
These are a few of the pillbugs I caught. Three of them are curled tight. The fourth is running like hell. It continued to do laps the whole time I was trying to take pictures. I suspect these are two different species as the dark gray ones are curled into spheres while the mottled brown one is running and has slightly flared edges on its carapace.
I originally collected them in a deep cup with a white inside. Here I've placed a few into a plain white frisbee. It gives them a little room to spread out but has a rim to contain them, and most things show up well against the pale background.
The fourth one is actually capable of conglobation, it just prefers to run instead. I hope that I managed to get multiples of each type. I know I got a bunch of the dark gray ones, but I'm not sure about the lighter brown kind that runs.
I used the small spatula to scrape back the leaf litter, then used the cardboard funnel to dump all the microfauna more-or-less toward that back area. Some landed on the moss. Here you can see the two earthworms and one of the dark gray pillbugs.
Then I put the leaf litter back where it was. You can still see one of the earthworms trying to burrow through the central moss.
If you look toward the right where the leaf litter meets the moss, you can see that one pillbug running around the edge.
This is the terrarium with microfauna in place, and indeed, you can see one running around the front.
These are from another experiment I started yesterday:
This is the cup of sphagnum moss that I'm trying to culture. Starting with a bag of dried sphagnum moss, I wet it and wrung it out until damp, then put it in a cup.
I put the lid on the cup loosely and set the cup on a high shelf where it will get indirect light. It will be interesting to see if anything grows.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-04 02:36 am (UTC)Terrarium and aquarium ecosystems are so cool... have you seen the youtube channel "tanks for nothing"? Great example of this kind of thing, just more... wet, and at a bit of a bigger scale. (Though microfauna are still an important part of the process!)
Do you find there to be any challenges with maintaining home-made terrarium systems like this one?
Thoughts
Date: 2025-04-04 03:13 am (UTC)Thank you!
>> have you seen the youtube channel "tanks for nothing"? Great example of this kind of thing, just more... wet, and at a bit of a bigger scale. (Though microfauna are still an important part of the process!) <<
I haven't seen that one. I'm fond of SerpaDesign and AntsCanada. Life in Jars is good for casual, locally sourced options.
>> Do you find there to be any challenges with maintaining home-made terrarium systems like this one? <<
Not a lot. With life, you never have guarantees. But I find that a locally sourced terrarium with modest plants and animals is by far easier to keep going than a fancier setup. If you get it right, then it pretty much runs itself with little or no care.
Things that can go wrong:
* too much or not enough water
* too much or not enough light
* pests / weeds taking over
* mold / fungi outbreak
* everything dies
That can happen to any setup. The modern approach seems to involve trying to sterilize everything. If you're trying to support expensive plants or animals, this may make sense. Trouble is, that's not how life works. You can go to all that trouble of boiling everything and wind up with mold anyhow because the spores are in the air -- and then you don't have anything to eat it, unless you have added a live culture of some sort.
I find that taking materials from nature has a pretty good chance of getting a balance of organisms that will get along well with each other. Most of the work comes at the beginning -- you want to keep an eye on water levels, plant and animal growth, etc. in the beginning in case it needs tinkering.
And if it doesn't work, I can dump it right back in the yard and try again with a fresh batch.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-05 04:19 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2025-04-05 10:40 am (UTC)There are two main things to know about them:
1) They are detritivores. As long as they have dead organic matter -- mostly plants -- to eat, they tend to thrive. This is why they thrive in leaf litter, compost piles, etc.
2) They require a moist environment. This is why they like living under rocks or logs, and also why they're one of the top two detritivores kept in terraria.
Some of the fancy ones are fussier about their needs; there are species that require a moisture gradient from drier to wetter, which is challenging to provide in a terrarium but is doable. However, the common outdoor species are mostly easy to care for simply by popping them in a terrarium with some dead plant matter and enough moisture to keep your moss alive.
The same knowledge tells you how to attract the little critters in your yard if you wish. They will happily colonize a log pile or mulch pile, and some will go for a rock garden as long as there's enough soil to hold moisture in some parts of it. I'm very happy to have them in my detritus food web, which is 3 days to apex.
https://www.terrariumportlandme.com/blog/isopod-care
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-04-06 04:25 am (UTC)