Jarrarrium Project

Table of Contents

Day 1: January 1 2026

I watched a lot of aquarium videos last summer, especially those by tanks for nothin. Anyway, this made me want to try. So because I wanted a really low-tech natural setup I figured the best way of doing it would be to start out with a little jarrarrium. I guess if I cared about fish I would start out with a filtery tank but that sounded like too much of an investment. Anyway so this is the biggest jar I have in my collection; it’s from Chameleon Cold Brew. It’s not the best, given the tiny opening, but hopefully it'll work.

Besides the fact that it’s new years, the big motivation to finally start was actually this video: I Farmed Crabs in my Garage. Was it Worth it? by I Did a Thing. I've been a big fan of IDAT for a while. Anyway, in the video, he found a blue-ring in his little shitty crab tank. Obviously, I’’m not Australian so I don’t expect a creature like that to show up (and I really don't want one either), but it gave me hope for a pretty stable environment with little effort.

At about 3:30 I decided to set out for the creek (about 3 miles away) to collect everything. Here’s a fit check– I wanted to look cool to hopefully motivate myself to go out.

I was going to take pictures but my family decided they wanted to come with me, plus my hands got too muddy too quick to hold my phone. Anyway, I didn’t get anything super exciting, but tomorrow I think I’ll go to another area and get some duckweed because it looks really quite sad in there.

Here's what the jar looked like at the end of day 1-- it's murky as fuck because I'd been carrying it around, so I just hope it settles.

Day 2: January 2

Not a lot to say today; I didn't go out like I had planned. I did grab a piece of moss from outside my house, though, just to add a little greenery to the jar. And hopefully produce oxygen for any bugs swimming around in there. I tried when I was at the creek to scoop up the things I saw (probably mosquito larvae) but I haven't seen any movement since. I don't know if the moss will survive to be honest; I doubt it'll live underwater, which is again why I need some duckweed. I did try to adhere one of the moss pieces to the sticks that poke out of the water, ideally that one will stay. Oh, and the water has settled considerably.

Day 3: January 3

Another day of nothing. Today, I finally created this blog page, though, which is an achievment. I think the next thing I'll be adding is some better soil. The stuff that's in there now is the dusty/muddy stuff that was naturally on the bottom of the creek, which probably isn't condusive to aquatic plants if the bareness of the place I got them from is any indication.

I don't know where to get aquatic plants, like at all. I'm thinking the seaweed stuff that's at the bottom of the creek in the deep areas but there are two problems with that: it's too deep to pull up (and I wouldn't want to dive in there in the first place, especially in the winter), and because it only exists in the deep area, I have no reason to believe it would survive in such a shallow environment as my jar, with water only like 4 in deep.

Again, the water has settled slightly more, and there's a thick biofilm forming. It looks kind of fuzzy and moldy. I would love for some microfauna to show up to eat that, but I still don't see any movement.

Day 11: January 11

As you can see from the date, it's been a while since I updated this. I haven't added anything new (because I really just don't feel like going out and doing things), and the moldy film is only thickening. Luckily, there have been bubbles forming in the water which I think means the plants have been breathing, but unluckily, the bubbles cannot escape through the surface of the water. I see a decent sized bubble forming there, and I can only hope that it grows big enough to pop through at some point. It's growing larger by the day.

When I (eventually) go out and gather the duckweed, I will try to scrape off this film and/or break it up to make room for the duckweed. I really need some animals in here to balance everything out, though it's not like the plants are thriving either. The moss is slowly but surely browning, and I can only imagine it will be dead before the month is up. As I said last week, I'd also like to gather some better soil. The soil currently in the jar is simply the very fine clay/mud stuff that is naturally at the bottom of my creek. This does not seem to be suitable for proper life. I had initially hoped the dead leaves inside would decompose into a higher quality soil, but for that to happen, I again need some animals to begin eating the leaves. Maybe my film has been eating the dead material as well, but not in nearly high enough quantities for what I need.

If anyone could help me identify the film, or at least the kingdom it belongs to (I have been assuming it is fungus) I would appreciate it.

Day 16: January 16

The bubbles are increasing, but not in the way I predicted. There are far more bubbles now and they aren't all collecting in the one spot I assumed they would. Also, around the stick that had lichen on it, there's a foamy material forming as well. Now that I'm looking at the picture from then, that foam is likely just the smaller bubbles all gathering together and failing to merge. The big bubble is much smaller now, too. Maybe it popped? Last thing; the moss from day 2 is almost as brown as the sticks; it doesn't seem like it's recoverable.