BioJar - Making a Tabletop Biosphere

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by
Jason
on August 5, 2007
in Cephalovlog
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BioJar [400x300, 38K]Make magazine has instructions on building your own miniature aquatic biosphere. I took the weekend challenge and made my own using specimens from a retention pond near work. There were snails and crustaceans in abundance, including grass shrimp (Palaemonetes sp.), amphipods (aka, scuds) and copepods.

Make:Biosphere - completed project [100x75, 6.5K]The instructions call for the use of a sea shell to help with buffering. I thought I would be smart and use a small deer antler instead. It looked good at first, but I never properly degreased the thing, so the set up went south pretty quickly. I removed the antler and restarted with a little crushed coral gravel. I also added the iconic econaut refuge (orange diver) and a little bit of hornwort purchased from the pet store.

Cephalovlog #2: 60 Seconds of Green Pond Scum

I made a little video featuring some of the critters. I used a jeweler’s loupe held next to my Canon ZR500 and Powershot A95 (movie setting) to get close-up shots of them in action. It was edited with iMovie and scored in Garageband.

Video thumbnail. Click to play.
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Blip.tv | YouTube

Lessons Learned

Needless to say, this is a great lesson in ecosystem management. Unlike an aquarium, the tabletop biosphere is a closed system. All nutrients must cycle from the plants (producers) to the animals (consumers) and back again (via decomposers/bacteria). A well balanced biosphere can last a couple of years, with some commercial manufacturers claiming systems that have run for ten years or more.

In addition to the articles from Make, there are several lesson plans out there for starting biospheres in the classroom. It might be interesting to get students started with these at the beginning of the year and see which ones last the longest. See the links below for more ideas.

Tendrils

I also wanted to highlight another sources of inspiration for this project. It is an aquascaping photoblog simply called Green. I encourage you to marvel at the beautiful macro photography of Marcus Wallinder’s miniature worlds. And if its zen-like, award-winning design inspires you, then here are more than 130 palettes to “help you get your green on” too.

3 Responses to “BioJar - Making a Tabletop Biosphere”

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  1. 1 mjb
    August 8, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    Beautiful video! Your system looks so active.

    I followed some of the links to those lesson plans. There seems to be a lot of interest in this kind of thing because it’s so obviously a demonstration that can be put together by grade schoolers, but can provide fascination to even a jaded scientist.

    I have one tip and one notion to add. The tip is this: if your goal is to keep your biggest animals alive, you probably shouldn’t just bottle up some pond water, as at least one of your link sites did. That pond water is likely to have a lot of nutrients that sooner or later will lead to an oxygen-consuming algal bloom. The MAKE recipe dilutes pond water with a lot of processed water.

    The notion is only for the real scientists out there. If you really want to convince yourself that biospheres work, you might want to do a small experimental design that includes control biospheres without lights. You’d be surprised how long these can last — I had one where animals lived for a month. Of course the lighted ones can last even longer. But the animals that go in these things are tough!

  2. 2 _Jameel_Charles_
    December 24, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    very very nice vid..i hope to make a bio-jar from a local pond some where if i find one…because not too much in my part of Brooklyn…where are you guys anyway.. i would geuss England but I do not know if u can …reply
    Thankz.

  3. 3 Jason
    April 16, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    KQED featured Make’s Table-Top Biosphere in a recent episode of the QUEST science series.

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