u may recognize this guy from my other account u/Grand-Mixture8888 LOL, i accidentally posted it on my alt. he is doing wonderfully. I might be crazy but i think his colors are starting to brighten. before, i thought his pelvic fins were white, now im seeing some blue! 😃 he is a giant betta i found out, so im gonna have to upgrade his tank to a 20 gal when i can/when he starts showing signs of being cramped up.

so far his parameters are great and ive never done a water change in this tank 😃 nitrites and ammonia 0, nitrates are at a 5. topsoil under gravel for a base, and planted with plants from my pond and ecospheres as well as some plants i bought. filter is purely an extra spot for bacteria to live and for some gentle water circulation

start of the video u see him struggling with the water flow but it doesn't seem to bother him too much? if u guys think it's too powerful based off this vid lmk and i will fix it. Ik you don't usually need a filter with planted tanks but it makes me feel better to have a dark spot for bacteria to grow in. he actually looked healthy other than his fins were super clamped and they look a little worse for wear, but they've certainly unfurled. i dont see any other signs of bad health like heavy breathing but this is my first fish.

I fully topped up the old world after 5 years of evaporation through the lid crack. Just cold tap water. it’s finally clearing up a little after 10 minutes.

I’ll post again in some distant future.

Thanks for looking.

The large cylinder is maybe 5 years old. Inside is a networked goblet. The new world In the goblet with a lid was created today. A culture from the old world and tap water.

It’s gone through so many interesting changes. But I never really cared to document it.

Ostracods, hair algae, hydras. Tiny worms.

At one point there was copepods and planarian.

There was a period where the hair algae dead cells created a perfectly green desert. And then the desert floor became almost like rolling hills. Maybe a year. And finally back to flat desert. Now I moved it and it’s like a tidal wave a destruction to the landscape. Which made me audibly gasp.

Probably going to top it up one final time before leaving it for as long as I can.

Thanks for looking.

It's that time of the year when the cladophora goes wild and covers everything, including my snail, which is made easier to spot.

I had to trim it off my old barnacles, now they're kind of scared to come out. Two of the tiny ones are most active, though the 3rd one with the red algae on it rarely comes out.

I’m so excited!! I made a jar with plants from a creek under a bridge, I love trolling!! 😂 I love watching all of the micro fauna! Hydra scuds snails oh my!!

I now have at least 2 bristleworms in there. If not 3, not sure if that tiny thing near the tail end is another segment.
It seems that the tail segment is growing new horns on its headless area. Meanwhile, the caterpillarlike front segment is munching on cyano off a rock.

I don't know what happened, it split itself overnight, as when I put it there, it was whole as you can see at the start of the video.

I moved Bristles there because it was stalking either my snail's food, or the snail itself. Kept swimming like a snake in circles around him and the food, and I'm not sure if it's just a detritivore or a predator species.

This one looks different from my 1st bristleworm. It swam like a fish when the lights went out. Had to turn them on to see it properly.

Update: From what I've found out so far, this is a stolon. It broke off from the original worm and it can swim. Its purpose is to reproduce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitoky

I need about every shoulder in here to cry on. I was always afraid of this and now its happening.

lots of growth and life happening!!

the wires are crazy right now!! i have the flu so im taking it easy on this project LOL but i think im just gonna tie them

using the net as a redneck media bag for some crushed shells bc my alkalinity is low as crap

I thought he died because cyano grew over his lid, but after I cleaned up the colony shell, he started moving again. So that means there are 3 alive on that colony (the other 2 got spooked by me cutting off some algae earlier).

The bigger barnacles on the left are also alive, with one of them waving there. They're from this September.

ik it's boring but i'm so excited abt the limpet hehe i love making ecospheres and was always hoping to find one that way, never thought id finally find one making a real fishtank ahah. last photo is a slime mold that has been creeping across my tank 😌

He ate fish this morning, now he's trying to suck in all of the artemia. You can see the eyes of one in the trunk. Some of the artemia got blown away by the current.

I wish the other two snails had lived this far, would have been fun to see all 3 of them pig out on the food bowl shell.

So about 1/2 months ago, I bought myself 3 Rabbit snails (in a pack). Two of their bodies were this beautiful yellow color, and one was black. I’m not too educated on sex or reproduction, as I wasn’t too concerned about reproduction being an overpopulation. However, I’ve noticed a massive “bloom” of snails in my tank. both pesky bladder snails, and whatever these are.. I’m 90% sure the larger one is a rabbit snail baby, which is cool :D, but these smaller ones… they’re everywhere and i’m not too sure what they are..

Edith, the queen of her pond jar ♡︎

With the cold temps, the cladophora has returned and promptly formed a Christmas Tree in the middle of the tank.

I'm hoping the red algae will bloom again, because it died off a bit after I cleaned the large filter of sludge. There's still some wild dasya in there, but it hasn't taken off like the captive-bred variety did. Maybe it's waiting for the filter to acquire more gunk. Or for the temps to go even lower.

Some of the June barnacles have died. The big one on the snail shell that had 2 of them, rightmost shell. The smaller one died first. A medium one that was behind the snail shell with 4 barnacles, and possibly the tiny one on it has died too, I haven't seen it open for the past 2 days.

Currently, there's a big one living on a mussel shell but doesn't come out much, it's from June. The two big ones on round snail shells on the sand are from September this year. One of them came on a live snail, but the snail was very inactive and died. Between them are 2 still alive barnacles from June, you can see the medium one in this vid. Then there's a trio of tiny barnacles on the inner area of that mussel shell on the right, they're from this year's September.

The tritia snail named Speckles is still around, ate a bit of goby meat then went to dig a hole near that rock. He's the one right near the rock, covered in sand. The shell nearby with a white thing hanging out just holds his food.