Last Wednesday I officially started my new hobby of closed terrariums! Although it's not truly a closed terrarium yet because I keep opening it to let out humidity. Let's go into the building process first. The first thing I did was order a handful of items off of Amazon. The 2.5 gallon glass jar, of course. Some aquarium rocks to put at the bottom. Some window screen mesh to keep dirt out of the rocks. Last but not least, some aquarium charcoal which should help the terrarium stay a little cleaner. On a whim, I also bought some aquarium wood for decorative/functional purposes. It's not really necessary to buy all this stuff but I wanted a huge jar and I wanted to do things nice to give it a good chance of success. First I put in the entire bag of rocks, it's probably excessive but it looks nice and it makes the jar heavier which helps prevent cat related disasters. After that I cut out some of the screen in roughly the same shape as the outside of the jar. It's a bit bigger than necessary but I don't really care that much. On top of that I put a what is probably an excessive layer of charcoal, unlike the rocks I have plenty of charcoal left over for future projects so no worries there. Now it was time to collect the wild items to put into the jar. First, I went out into my parents backyard to find some isopods (I assume Armadillidium vulgare but who really knows). I thought this would be the easy part but it actually took a while to find ~20 individuals, none of them were fully grown either which is strange. 15 years ago I could have gone into that backyard and found hundreds of isopods with ease. I suspect the increasing gecko/anole population is keeping them in check because 15 years ago house geckos had just shown up in the area and anoles were still years away. I also tried to purposefully catch some springtails and I'm pretty sure I saw a couple (I didn't even know what springtails were until a couple weeks ago so I'm not an expert) while catching the isopods but I'm not 100% certain those specific ones made it into the terrarium. If I had more time I would have tried setting up a springtail trap and culturing them but we'll just have to hope that enough came with the dirt to start a colony. I also snagged a tiny little dwarf mondo grass plant so that I'd have a plant I actually could identify in there. For the dirt I mostly gathered decayed bark chips mixed with a bit of the classic claylike Texas dirt that we have everywhere. I put a few leaves in there as well. This is it for the backyard, now it was time to journey into a nearby park. The park is massive and has a creek winding all through it that is surrounded by trees. I figured this would be the ideal place to find moss and I wasn't wrong. I ended up encountering what I think might be two different species of moss, or just the same species but at different growth stages we'll find out over time. I don't have any hope of identifying plant species myself but I am seriously considering returning to the park to gather some more of the bright green moss so that I can have a supply growing for future terrariums. Also, because it looks nice and I'll have 2 spare plant pots soon. While in the park I also gathered 2 individuals of some random plant growing in the shade. No idea what it is so we'll just have to see if it does fine in the terrarium. I also snagged a bit of wood with lichen on it. I don't know if the lichen is alive or will do well in the terrarium but I figure it doesn't hurt to try. I also got another solid chunk of wood to serve as a hiding place as well as a bumpy rock (the bumps are fossilized shells) and some shells from the creek to serve as decorations. I had hoped to find some isopods at the park but no luck there so we're stuck with the backyard population for now. I did take a few tiny bits of dirt from various places in the park though. After that it was just a matter of arranging everything into the terrarium. It had just recently rained and I had washed the charcoal so I think there's too much humidity in there right now. I did add a bit of food for the isopods. Specifically, I added a couple eggshells to serve as a source of calcium and I added a few fish food flakes and a fish food pellet to provide protein. I know there will probably still end up being nutrient deficiencies in the long term but I wanted to avoid a couple obvious ones in the short term to give the isopods the best chance for success. I'll probably add an organic spinach leaf soon but that will hopefully be the extent of me feeding these isopods since this is going to become a closed terrarium once the humidity is fixed. In terms of placement, I've got the jar sitting on the edge of my tv stand using some anti-slip feet that fell off a cat toy years ago. It's close to 2 windows but never gets hit by direct sunlight. If anything, I worry the location might be slightly too dark but I'll be moving in a month so the plants just need to hold on until then. So that is everything that I did to set this thing up, now how has it gone over the past 4 days? Over the first 2 days I spotted two intruders in the jar. The first was this mystery white bug, it was sitting on the leaves for 2 days but I haven't seen it since. The second was an earwig I saw on the first night, I also haven't seen it since but I'm sure it's still alive and well. I'm hoping it's the only one in there because I really don't want a breeding colony of earwigs outcompeting my isopods. If I look in there long enough I usually see an isopod wandering around but on the 3rd day I saw 2 isopods at the same time. Otherwise it's always been one. I can only hope that all ~20 are alive and well. While writing this, I spotted what I believe to be 2 small ants wandering around together so that's new. I'm sure there's other things living in there because while I tried to avoid putting any snails, worms or grubs inside I didn't really look too closely through the dirt before dumping it in. I haven't seen any sign of snails on the glass yet though so we might have avoided that potential issue. I'm completely ok with some small bugs hitchhiking a ride into the jar as long as they don't cause the isopods to die off. I have noticed small bits of mold growing at this point but that is to be expected in a new terrarium. I can only hope the theoretical springtail population can start to eat the mold before it gets out of hand. So that is the current state of the terrarium. As for the future? At some point I'll have to decide the humidity is fine and seal it. I'm not 100% convinced the jar lid is truly airtight so I will probably use some clingwrap and rubber bands to give it a helping hand. I might occasionally (like once a year) open it up to add a new individual isopod for genetic diversity. If necessary, I'll order some springtails online to add to the terrarium if the mold gets out of hand for too long. I'm not really too worried about showing off how "my terrarium has been sealed for 2 years and is still alive!" or anything. Having it sealed is more of a convenience and curiosity thing than anything else. In the future when I have more experience I might go for a long term sealed terrarium. The last big change I have planned is that if the mystery park plant doesn't work out, or if there's just space in general, I will try planting some alpine strawberry (fragaria vesca) seeds in there. I've been growing a single plant from seed this year but it's growing so slowly it might not grow fruit until next year. I don't want to risk my only plant by putting it in the terrarium so we'll have to wait. For the future outside of this terrarium? I'm hoping to start a second terrarium in October because my grandparents have an old giant plastic terrarium thing. I only vaguely remember what it was like so I'm going to wait to see it before making any crazy plans. It might end up being a non-sealed plant focused terrarium, perhaps a cat proof home for my strawberry plant during the winter months. I also have an old fish tank that has a slight crack in the glass on the bottom which I'm considering turning into a moss/isopod terrarium. I am very tempted to purchase isopods online so that I can have a species that looks different from the wild ones around here. I'll be looking into this project in September after I move. Anyway, I think that pretty much covers everything so far. I'll post update blogs if/when anything interesting happens involving the terrarium.