#jararrium

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Jean Jacket was out and about and very lengthy (sometimes)

[video id: A small translucent leech in a jar, stretching to a long skinny thread and then scrunching to a ball as it moves]

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Came back from vacation and stared at my living snowglobe for a while

[Video id: An aquarium in a small jar, filled with delicate plants and tiny crustaceans, seed-shaped ostracods and shrimp-like amphipods, which swim around busily.]

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New amphipod behavior observed today. In the scientific world I think they call this scaring the beejeezus out of each other

[video id: A small, shrimp-like amphipod stumbles into another of its kind before both flail wildly and swim away in opposite directions]

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Gave my pet dust specks a piece of cucumber for the first time and I think they like it.

I have no idea if there are multiple species of ostracod in there or if some are just juveniles? I see little brownish ones and big green ones. Maybe I'll get the microscope out to attempt identifying them sometime.

[hyperfixation-floodgate]

The tiny jararrium has been upgraded! The residents are now in a setup that actually has soil in the bottom more like the Walstad method, and I can't wait for the guppy grass and hornwort to fill out.

A circle of salvinia minima around a feeding ring let it have both floating plants and light from above through the clear lid. The move covered everything in brown algae debris, but the inhabitants cleaned it up pretty quick! And there are BABIES

I've counted at least 7 different species in there just that I can see without a microscope, which is amazing to me. They all came from a sample of nearby gunky lake water.

[video id: Inside a planted jar aquarium, a tiny shrimp creature crawls on a plant and then swims off in a jittery, flailing way.]