Yo, what's going on SerpaSquad!
Tanner here and I'm back with another ecosphere build.
I don't do these very often, but I know a lot of you wanted to see a new one.
I came up with this project randomly when I noticed that the plants from the
pea puffer aquascape came with a few hitchhikers.
No it wasn't snails, it was Scuds, which are small shrimp-like crustaceans.
I figured that rather than put them in one of my aquariums,
it would be cool to give them a separate home in an ecosphere.
As you saw, I already went through and collected most of my materials.
All of these items have been in other setups previously.
I always make sure to save everything, so they can be reused over and over again.
I have some Banana Stems, Coco Curls, a Kurrajong Pod, Trumpet Pods,
and an assortment of various Twigs and Branches.
I also have a selection of Leaves.
I'm putting all of this the pot to simmer, so they become waterlogged in no time.
Otherwise, the process could take a few days.
Right now, everything is floating, which won't work for the scape.
So I put them on a low simmer for a few hours.
While that's on the stove, I'll prepare the container.
For this one, I have a really unique Latch Top Jar.
I've had it for a few years now and it's great to finally put it to use.
I intend to put a few plants in here.
I already had a bag of Flourite Dark, so I decided to use that for the base.
Like usual, I rinsed it off before use.
I put a thin layer in the container.
I also have two different sands.
The primary sand I'll use is Red Flint Sand, which is composed of large grains.
I used this to cover the substrate for a better aesthetic.
I went back with Play Sand and sprinkled it throughout.
The grains are much finer, so they'll add variety for better texture.
To continue with this, I also added some Pea Pebbles.
You'll only see a few later on,
but I added them everywhere because I don't know how it will be scaped.
At this point, the items in the pot have had time to cool down and are ready for use.
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What the heck is he doing in here.
I'll transfer them into a bucket of clean water to ensure they stay waterlogged while I scape.
To start, I used the trumpet and Kurrajong Pods as my key elements.
These are the largest items, which will dictate where the other ones will go.
I wove the twigs around these elements in a way that I felt looks natural.
My vision was to replicate the bottom of a pond or a puddle in the woods.
After that, I worked in the Banana Stems.
I think these look really cool.
From there I carefully placed the Leaves.
I also pulled apart one of the Coco Curls to get individual strands.
I placed them around for even more textural contrast.
I sprinkled sand over some of the elements to mimic sediment buildup.
The scape is done, which means it's ready for water.
I used an airline to fill it up, so that nothing was displaced.
Here it is now.
I think it look incredible as is, but it needs some plant life.
Initially I wanted to use a few stem plants, but I decided to keep it simple with Süßwassertang.
I think it fits the look of this setup better anyway.
I placed it between elements without covering too much of the scape.
Seems like a good time to get this thing stocked.
As I said in the beginning, the star of the ecosphere are the Scuds.
I also have a single Bladder Snail and some Malaysian Trumpet Snails.
Everything is kept at room temperature, so no need to acclimate.
I poured the scuds into a net and then into the ecosphere.
I added the snails as well.
There you have it, the scud ecosphere.
I think it was cool little project, especially considering that it happened by accident.
Something else that's cool,
is that excluding the jar, everything I used was repurposed from other builds.
I think it's also a great example of how beautiful a scape can be with very simple materials.
A few botannercals, some sticks, and Süßwassertang, what more could you ask for?
I think it's fun to watch as well.
At first glance there doesn't appear to be much going on until the scuds
start swimming and the snails crawl around.
The inhabitants will feed on the botanicals as they decay and algae as it forms.
I will likely have to remove scuds as they reproduce, but that's alright.
I plan to setup a dedicated tank for them soon to breed as fish food.
That's a topic for another time though.
Overall, I had a lot of fun making this one and I hope you enjoyed it as well.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
If you want to make something like this,
you could simply go to a local body of water and get everything that way.
I can't do that right now because of the weather,
so I figured I might as well make do with what I had on hand.
Anyway, I think that's a good place to end.
Thank you so much tuning in.
I truly appreciate your support and hope you learned something new.
Also, if you're looking for more content, be sure to check out my second channel.
I'll link it up at the end.
Regardless, I hope you all have a great week and I'll see you next Saturday like always.
Take care and peace.