Just recently I started making an ecosystem in Grade 7 science class at St. Peter’s All Grade in McCallum. It was a wetland forest that I made in an old fish tank left in the school. I cleaned the tank out and went outside to get my materials, which my teacher Ms. Stockley and my classmate, Cameron, helped me with.
We collected some grass, moss, and mud and were even able to get a carpenter (woodlice). Over the weekend (September 14) I caught two more woodlice and two spiders. I added these on Sunday so that they wouldn’t die before Monday. The ecosystem lasted for about two weeks then mold started to grow everywhere inside!
That afternoon (September 21) my teacher and I had to throw it all out. Doing which we found only one woodlouse left inside, we guessed the others had died. Since the ecosystem didn’t last as long as we wanted it to, I tried an ocean ecosystem. I got the filter running with some salt water, sand, kelp, shells and a giant scallop!
The scallop lasted about a week. Then, just yesterday (September 29) my family and I went off in the boat and caught a crab, some clams and two starfish to put my tank. We were going to take the scallop out anyway, but when we took it out last night (September 29) it and died and rotted making the water horribly dirty. Afterwards we got new water and redid the whole ecosystem.
This morning (October 1) I came to school and everything was perfect. The crab was sleeping and all the other sea creatures were getting settled away. I really liked this experiment and I would recommend it to any willing student.
It was very fun, I think the part I liked the most was collecting the bugs and creatures with my family. The worst would probably have to be cleaning it out! So to anyone who does this experiment salt water creatures need to be in salt water!
P.S. If you put living creatures in your ecosystem remember to check on them every day! Also don’t forget to feed them because you may run into a situation where one creature may eat the other one. In my case the crab ate the sea urchin where I then started feeding him fish pellets and to this day (October 12) the crab is still alive!
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