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| Fun Stuff - Ecosphere |
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Step 3 Next is the fish. We went down to our local Petsmart and asked the girl at the "Wall of Fish Tanks" to give us a suggestion as to which fish would work well. And as I find more and more often she had know idea what I was talking about. Even though I consider myself quite articulate she just smiled shyly and said she didn't know. So, it was up to us to make that decision. Well, I told my son, just pick the cheapest one. He picked one that looked like the one the man had at the craft show (very scientific)! |
attempting to sell very pretty “ecospheres” for between $15 and $30 dollars. In different sizes, they consisted of a rectangular acrylic container with a lid, one very tiny fish, a few silk flowers stuck into multi colored aquarium pebbles on the bottom of the container. My son really wanted one and tried to convince me to shell out the money. I thought they looked pretty from a distance, but kind of cheap up close. Also way over-priced! I said (as I often do) “We can make that at home”. And he said (as he often does),”Really, no we can’t”. Ah yee of little faith! |
Step 1 We used an old fish bowl, but you can you an empty jar with a lid. Put gravel or sand in the bottom of your container. We dressed ours up a little with a few small shells and stick. Now that I think about it, I wonder why we used a stick. It didn't serve any scientific purpose. Maybe we thought our ecosphere would work so well the fish would evolve, grow legs and crawl it's way free! Step 2 You will need dirty pond water. I believe the organisms in the pond water are supposed to multiply and grow algae or the fish to eat. Pour the water into the container slowly as not to disturb the perfectly placed gravel. |
Step 4 Now what? Well, we poured the fish into it's new "world" and covered it the top with saran wrap and secured it with a rubber band around the rim and left it in my son's room. Then we checked on it every few days. The fish lived for 6 weeks! I thought that was some sort of record for homemade ecosystems made by two highly scientific people in the middle of December. No, sadly that was not a record, but it was quite a long time to us. The fish seemed to have been eating the algae that had formed inside the fish bowl and I believe that was what we really wanted to achieve. It turns out the man's ecosystems at that craft show were much more pleasing to the eye as well, maybe they were worth $15.00! If you want a really scientific one, go to http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=989719 |
| Caution - not an extremely scientific experiment...... |
Things you will need:
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