DAY 2: Our terrarium is already pullin harder than anyone elses. This two piece wonder includes one part land and two parts water. The land part of our terrarium is populated by a moss and a fern. It has been functioning for one day and new ferns are already growing. The bottom part of the land portion of our terrarium is gravel with a layer of activated carbon on top of it. These are there to soak up the water so the plants don't get flooded. Then there is a large layer of dirt to hold the roots of the plants. The aquarium is fitted with a heater and bubbler to keep the water warm and moving. It is filled with conditioned water so that the plants and animals will happily be able to survive and breed. These concepts seemed a little too advanced for the other groups and I'm placing bets on their fish dying. UPDATE: Their fish totally died and no one was suprised.
ALL THE OTHER DAYS: Our terrarium kept pullin and everyone else's died.
Objective: Our objective was to create a healthy terrarium that hosts a working ecosystem.
Materials: In our terrarium we used a 2 gallon tank, gravel, charcoal, dirt and mosses for the land section of the tank. For the water portion we used sand, hornwort (plant), a heater, bubbler, and snails.
Results: Our aquarium/ terrarium was very successful. All the snails survived off the algae we supplied them and the mosses and aquatic plants grew a fair amount.
Analysis: Some limiting factors in our aquarium were space supplies and lack of a natural environment. Due to the lack of space we were not able to put any actual fish in the tank. Since it is an artificial environment, we need to simulate water flow and the constant adding of new water to the area. If we added fish, they would've soiled the water too fast for us to change it out without putting them into shock. In the land part, we were obviously not able to put any animals in because it had an area of barely a couple square inches. We were limited to very low maintenance plants because there was not much nutrients in the soil for the plants to absorb and we lacked the proper lighting system to successfully imitate the sun.