Ooo spiders and snakes! An old roommate of mine has lizards and snakes. Uuugg i couldn't take the smell personally. I find reptiles cool, yet stinky. Now i think spiders are amazing. I would love to have a little Jumping Spider. I used to have a scorpion in college, which was fun but i learned that they weren't for me.
When my daughter was born, she wanted a fish. I had never had fish growing up so i had to learn so about the nitrogen cycle and fish keeping. I have found Dr. Wahlsted's methods to work perfectly. I raised 10 generations of guppies over 6 years in a couple planted tanks. Hoping to create my own line/breed of guppy. I really enjoyed it, but my wife says I have too many hobbies

, so i downsided this week to make room for my gardening and gave them to my sister-inlaw.
I did keep my minuture aquarium and Ecosphere though. The smallest one is 5 years old and doesn't receive any extra input. well, that's not 100% true. I check on it once ever year to make sure it's still viable, by adding a couple fish food pellets if needed.
I used Acute Bladder Snails as the bottom feeders for all my tanks. And it's the only animal in my Ecosphere. She/he does just fine and is self procreating.
I grow,
Bacopa monnieri (Money Wort)
Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia (Leafy)
Echinodorus (Assorted Sword)
Microsorum pteropus (Java Fern)
Vesicularia dubyana (Java Moss)
Hydrocotyle leucocephala (Vine)
Frog bit (floating plant)
In my Ecosphere is Java Fern and Frogbit.
When i still had the open top fishtank, i also had Golden Pothos growing from it. I rarely had to do water changes.
My wife misses the fish now and says I should get a Beta for the 1.5gal jar. Its a Lemonade/Tea jar and makes for easy water changes. Our first fish was a Beta that we kept in a jar just like this. He lived a LONG a healthy life. Its amazing just how much better an aquarium will do when there are living plants in them.
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