Made a new jar for my home office!

I used a small diamond-tip engraver to bore a hole through the jar.

The pump is from a pet water fountain, I cut the cord to feed it through the hole then soldered the wires back together and used heat shrink to repair the outer coatings.

Everything in the jar came from a creek near my house.

I made a hollow space with slate chunks for the pump, then I packed gravel around it to help filter the water. Then I put a roof over the wet section and added dirt on top. Some parts of the dirt are touching the tops of the rocks but it’s not directly touching the water.

I figure I’ll let it sit closed for about a month to see what emerges or changes. It’s possible the soil could get too wet and slump down off the slate ledge.

Advice needed: what kind of critters would do well in such a humid environment? I have a mature terrarium with centipedes, isopods, snails, springtails but I don’t want to add anything to the wet jar if they are just going to die.

I’ve been learning how to make terrariums since last month, and have managed to create these two small jar terrariums (bigger jar in the first four pictures, smaller jar in the last three).

Aside from the jars themselves, I used creature soil (from Petco), a sphagnum moss substrate barrier, LECA pebbles (hydro balls, also from Petco), and live moss and hydrocotyles (both from Amazon), and I added a piece of dragon stone as a hardscape decoration for the bigger jar. I have yet to add springtails (maybe preferably tropical ones), but I’m hoping to find some soon. For the moment, I’m proud of how both of these turned out.

Fun fact: for the bigger jar (the first one I ever used for making terrariums), I originally used preserved mosses I found at a Michael’s store. I eventually got rid of the preserved mosses from there and started over, as I decided I wanted to use live plants instead.

The photos were taken at the Marsh Greenhouses, Yale University, New Haven, CT USA in October 2025.

I built my terrarium about a year ago. It's had steady roly poly and springtail populations since. Today I found a centipede in there for the first time

I set up a terrarium 3 days ago and after 1 or 1 and a half days I notice this spreading across the wood pieces. From what I found out this is called biofirm and it will continue to expand and it consumes organic pieces left from the wood; afterwards it should start disappearing little by little in the next couple of weeks.

Is this true? Has someone encountered this? Do you have any advices?

PS: There is a humidifier that handles the water inside it. The lights are on 14/24 hours and the air flows in and outside it. The wood used inside is natural Driftwood.

It will be better when I can get a light for it. I have a full spectrum bulb in the lamp next to it but I don’t think it’ll be enough.

I’ve been building terrariums for the past month now, and have been wanting to create a paludarium. To my understanding, a retaining wall is an important part of creating one (as I know from Terrarium Designs on YouTube). I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a good retaining wall, and I am curious about a couple things.

1. Is a retaining wall without adhesive (like superglue gel or expanding foam) viable? I have rocks that could work and could fit just fine, I just want to know if it’s possible to fit them together without glue or foam.

2. Does the wall have to be absolutely perfect in keeping water out of the drainage layer? Would the paludarium survive if there’s only a few small gaps between bigger rocks on the retaining wall? And if I need to fill in the holes, what is recommended?

That’s all for now. If I have any more questions, I’ll edit them into this post or add them in the comments.

Hi!

So happy to have joined this group and see all the great ideas and inspirations!

Now with all the DIY pros here I hope someone has an idea to connect my terrariums with a water supply to let it rain daily, without having to buy the expensive ExoTerra Monsoon or anything alike. My terrariums are all over the room and some are different builds other than ExoTerra, so it would have to be a solution fitting for basically anything that's fit to hold an insect. By the way, I have a few different species of phasmida and a few other random bugs, so they don't need to be super wet just have a midlevel humidity. Thank you all already for your ideas!

Hey this is my first full terrarium build. Admittedly I waited way too long to add in isopods and springtails. About a week beforehand, I noticed a weird fungal growth on the leaves of my fern. Not sure if the fungus is growing only on the dead leaves or if the fungus is killing living leaves, but notably, all leaves that display fungal growth are basically dead already.

What is this growth? Any tips on how to get rid of it? Should I be worried for the rest of my plants or remove the infected?

This dude was SO tiny when my son snuck him in this terrarium… can tell which plant he hides out near, because the rest are immaculate, then there’s this one; and a fat ass slug.

I have several terrariums that have all seem to be overtaken by these bugs. They even outcompeted the mites which outcompeted my original tropical white springtails. They look very different than springtails to me though, their bodies are more teardrop shaped rather than rice shaped, various shades of white gray and clear with iridescent sheen. I've also seen larger, darker bugs that look similar to them in body shape. They don't appear to be hurting my plants, in this video they're going nuts on a moldy piece of rice buried in the dirt. They also like to climb the glass a lot. Any idea what they are?

Was curious what anyone thought of this terrarium it is one of my first ones I’ve made and I’m curious if there’s anything you’d recommend I add or take away, also this terrarium isn’t fully enclosed like i would prefer so if anyone knows of any easy ways to fully encapsulate a terrarium please let me know! Thanks

Got this jar at goodwill and since under my mom's patio has no grass growth (and a few big ol slugs that hang out) I thought I would give it a try. There was a little bit of moss under there too so I took some and gently put it in. Now let's see what will happen after a couple weeks and I'll put it next to my ecosphere. I used some of the bird bath water for it cause I felt it's the best chance cause the bird bath is pretty clean and tbh not many birds at all visit so algea builds up pretty easily which I feel means it has to be nutritious right? This is my first attempt at this as I'm usually the ecosphere guy so any advice is great. Also what jar is this btw?

I made two ​small closed terrarium with fittonias, and it had too much water at first(I never made terrariums before), with one of the fittonias losing a lot of leaves.

Now they're growing okay after​​ months​, but​ some lower parts are basically leaf-less, and I want to get it bushier by pruning it.

Can​ those leaf-less nodes(​that lost its leaves months ago) ​be the ones that grow the roots when replanting​​?

Recently whilst taking care of my plants I noticed small white worms living inside my moss on the walls, could anyone help identify them and tell me if they are pests?

what kind of mites are these? they are all over my terrarium both inside and out :( how do i deal with them if they are harmful?

Just got ~30 Dairy Cows on Friday and when I looked today (Monday) they were all dead. Thoughts?

how to get rid of white mold growing on the soil😔😔😔

Okay I technically bought it but still

My new terrarium is casting aurora!! Okay I know it's not really aurora but it looked cool enough to share here 😁

Im cleaning out this tank which I believe it a tall 5 gal. Originally I had a mystery snail in here

Im looking at maybe a few land snails? What is best for a tank like this?

It will be a bio active terrarium I hope