I Made an Ecosystem With a Mini Pond Inside, Here’s How!

in this video I'll be showing you how I turn this glass bowl into an ecosystem that even has a mini Pond let's get straight into the build this is an 8 liter or 1.8 gallon glass bowl it looks a lot bigger in real life than it does on camera firstly I'm going to add a drainage layer for this I'm going to be using leaker it's extremely lightweight and porous making it the perfect material for drainage also known as a false bottom the drainage layer will provide a place for excess water to sit instead of it sitting in the substrate for a terrarium this size a drainage layer is essential on top of the drainage layer I'm going to place a substrate barrier for this I'm using window screen mesh this will prevent the substrate from getting down into the drainage layer it's inevitable that some substrate will get through but this will hold back the majority time to move on to the substroke I'm using my usual mix which I'll put up on screen now it holds moisture it's resistant to compression and provides nutrients for the plants for this build however I'm going to be adding some crushed up leaves into the substrate mix I'm doing this because some of the creatures inside would use these as a source of food I collected these leaves myself washed them and then sterilize them to sterilize them I cook them in the oven until they were bone dry another method is to boil them in water doing this reduces the chance of unwanted pests being introduced after mixing a generous amount of leaves into the substrate I went on to add the soil mix into the terrarium I'll leave some Amazon links in the description to all the components of this soil mix so you can have a go at making it yourself when adding the substrate I sloped it up towards the back and gently patted it down this will help create a good sense of depth with the substrate in I'm now going to show you how to make a mini Pond inside the terrarium I'm going to use this small plastic cup and dig a hole in the substrate for it to sit in it can then be filled with water and it's as simple as that you could leave the tub as it is and it would look just fine but I want to make it blend in a little better to do this I'm going to start by taking some sandpaper and roughing up the inside of the cup it's very important to do this because if you don't The Next Step won't work as well after the inside of the cup it's all scratched up I'm going to take some silicone and coat the inside of the cup silicone is great at sticking to Glass but typically it struggles when sticking to plastic scratching up the inside of the cup creates a larger surface area for the silicone to hold onto after I put a generous amount in I used my finger to spread it out I should mention that this should only be done with aquarium marine grade silicone or 100 silicone now I'm going to take this crushed dried Aqua soil and pour it into the cup I'm then going to use my finger to press it into the wet silicone you haven't got to use Aqua soil and you can use something a little more accessible such as cocoa fiber just make sure the cocoa fiber is bone dry before applying it I'm hoping this will make the pond look a lot more seamless inside the terrarium and it won't just look like a plastic cup sitting in the substrate after it was fully coated in aqua soil I left it to cure for 24 hours 24 hours later and the pond is ready I did give it a rinse off camera which is why it's wet now I'm going to take the terrarium and place the pond back inside in my opinion it looks a lot better and more natural than it did before with the pond in place it's now time to add some Hardscape to the terrarium this is Driftwood and I'm going to be using it as the primary Hardscape material for this terrarium I take some time to experiment with various different layouts and structures until I come up with something that I'm happy with I'm not going to be making anything too complicated in here as the majority will be covered in Plants anyway here's what I settled with for the Driftwood it's very simple but should form a good skeleton which can then be brought to life I also went on to add a couple bits of lava rock to Accent the wood once again I experimented with their position before finishing off The Hardscape Here's the final Hardscape as I said earlier I didn't want to create anything too complicated as there's going to be a high volume of plants inside this terrarium now it's time to bring the terrarium to life and start adding the plants I'm starting with this Boston fern I use my finger to make a small hole in the substrate before using some tweezers to plant the fern I really love the bushy and wild look this plant brings to the terrarium sticking with ferns I'm next going to be planting these asparagus ferns in my opinion they look like miniature bushy trees and really help create a good sense of scale inside the terrarium once again I used some tweezers to plant them inside when choosing plants for your terrariums it's important that you choose ones that will thrive in high humidity most tropical and aquatic plants tend to do well in terrariums I planted another smaller Boston fern to fill out the background even with just a few of the plants in the terrarium has really started to take shape before adding any more plants I'm going to take a plastic cup fill it with leaves and then fill it up with water I'll be adding these to the terrarium a little bit later and it's much easier to do so when they're wet next I'm going to take a few cuttings from this photonia although they have little to no roots at the moment they'll have no trouble rooting and growing inside this setup using some long tweezers I plant the stem into the substrate I really like the pop of color they bring to the scape now I'm going to place in some Moss I face patch in my garden and it seems to be a mix of fern moss and hypnemos I use the tweezers to place it inside the terrarium and then gently press it down onto the substrate before planting any more Moss or plants I'm going to first put in the leaf litter this would be a food source for some of the microfauna species that are going to live inside this terrarium it also gives the terrarium a forest floor look which I think looks great now I'm going to plant Moss throughout some of the leaf litter if you want to learn more about terrarium making I highly recommend you check out my ebook it contains everything you need to know to make and keep long lasting healthy terrariums it's perfect for beginners or someone that's new to terrarium making I'll leave a link at the top of the description or in the pin comment now I'm going to take some small peperomia vertical arter cuttings and plant them inside the terrarium these will help bring some detailed interest around the scape due to their dark green turtle back leaves these cuttings will root themselves in no time I've got some leftover glosser stigma from a previous project so I'm going to use that in here as well I split it up into smaller chunks and then plant it inside the terrarium this plant should creep and grow around the base of the terrarium and bring some nice textures and detail to the bottom of the scope I also planted a small hygraphylet which was also left over I then went on to place some smaller pieces of Driftwood around the scape to add a little more detail [Music] and also some small acorns these really give it that foresty floor look I was going for if you're enjoying this video be sure to drop it a like before filling up the pond I gave the terrarium a good spray down using a small cup I carefully filled up the pond with water [Music] it had a lot of leaves and dirt in it so I pulled the majority out and then done a quick water change this was easy enough with some Airline tubing [Music] with all the dirt gone I then filled the water feature back up as it is it looks a bit plain and boring duckweed would solve this problem I used some tweezers to scoop some out and place it inside the pond it will quickly grow and multiply and will soon cover the entire surface that's all the planting done and I'm really happy with how the terrarium is looking now it's time to add some life These are spring Tails they are a tiny hexapod which will clean the terrarium 24 7. they'll eat any mold or decaying matter inside process it and then poop it out in the form of fertilizer for the plants they're so small they can even walk on water in this tub is about 10 isopods ranging in size I got these a while back and I'm not sure on the species but they've been breeding really well let me know in the comments if you know what they are I gently placed them inside the terrarium and they start exploring in no time they will mostly feed on relief litter and on decaying matter but I'll also be placing in food like this old mushroom coated in calcium powder all what's left to do now is place on a lid and watch the terrarium grow three weeks have passed since setting up this terrarium and it's thriving the duckweed has pretty much covered the entire surface of the pond I've done a few water changes to combat algae the Moss has started growing and is even growing up the sides of the glass the peperomia vertical Lata has grown a lot and has almost tripled in height [Music] New Growth is visible on the Boston Ferns and the asparagus ferns are also doing well as for the springtails and isopods they've also been thriving I don't see them too often as their numbers are still relatively low but I should be able to see their population increase soon let me know in the comments what else you think I should introduce into this setup and thank you for watching check out this video for another terrarium build [Music]

Channel: Terrarium Designs

Views: 975,004

Keywords: How to make a terrarium, Terrarium with a pond, Lake terrarium, Easy paludarium, Mini paludarium, Ecosystem terrarium, Bioactive terrarium, Bioactive terrarium tutorial, Simple terrarium, Terrarium tutorial, Terrarium guide, Waterfall terrarium, Waterfall paludarium, Stream terrarium, River terrarium, Isopod terrarium, Terrarium for isopods, Self sustaining terrarium, Bowl terrarium, Teranium, Tererium, Terranium, Vivarium

Id: 0QTg9VSN5jA

Length: 9min 21sec (561 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2023