This small, blue tinted mason jar is kept relatively dark, containing only a little live moss, wet soil and damp wood, which all supports three different little guys...I thought!
First are these extremely tiny local glass snails
Then there are these millipedes that never ever get any bigger than this
There are globular cave springtails in there that can be seen as moving white specks and it was easier to use a photo from springtails.us where you can actually buy these for your vivariums, in fact you can see one as a blurry dot by the millipede
But while taking these photos, I saw this mite! This is almost definitely a predatory species. This jar hasn't been opened for months and everything else is still there, so at least thus far, the balance between this flesh eating beast and the springtail herds must be fairly stable.
I might actually try adding the algae eating mites from my biggest jars. I have more of all these other species, so if those eat too much of the available food and take over I can still start up a similar jar. They might even be more favorable food for the predator, which could otherwise have been eating baby millipedes (I do only see just a couple adults)
My fiance and I are getting married this summer, and for a nerdy touch, we’ve been buying Japanese gashapon figures for some nerdy terrarium centerpieces! But I wanted to make edible versions, and as part of our St. Jude fundraiser, donors could choose how we decorated! By the end of May, we had raised over $1000, and made three unique terrariums that all had an Eeveelution touch!
This is my 100% NO MAINTENANCE EVER terrarium jar. You get a usable mason jar, substrate and mix of sphagnum mosses with other tiny plants, put the substrate in the bottom of the jar, throw the mosses in, put it in a windowsill with the lid on tight and it should live and grow with no attention at all.
The majority of moss terrariums and kits sold on etsy are unfortunately ripoffs; they look nice with bright green poofs of moss but they're almost always taken from the wild and will die no matter what you do.
What I sell is moss I've already been growing in my window jars!
I did a quick maintenance on this Wabikusa. Since it had to move anyway, because I need the old container for the new project, I cut back the plants a little. There were still a few older dried up spots on the plants and also the moss had grown quite well and was ready for trimming. I will keep it now in this plant saucer. The plants have already adapted so well to emersed growth that I hardly spray it at all. I just fill some water into the saucer, thats's enough.