So now you are the proud owner of an ecosphere, the question is how do you take care of your precious jar of pond? The answer is that there honestly isn’t much to do aside from leaving it on a windowsill with decent light. However this page contains a few tips and tricks which will help maximise the survival of your ecosphere!
Immediately after creating your ecosphere, it is best to keep it open for the first week (or until you are able to get hold of some plants if you do not have any already), this provides the ecosphere with oxygen as while the water is cloudy the plants cannot photosynthesise, this prevents the organisms from suffocating and stops your ecosphere meeting an early demise. People often try to seal theirs straight away, which I have found reduces the chance that it will survive in the long run. It takes time for an ecosystem to establish itself.
Lighting
You can keep your ecosphere illuminated with a white LED lamp however it is easiest to use natural sunlight from a window. It is best to avoid direct sunlight as this can heat up the jar and kill everything inside. I put my ecospheres on a frosted glass window as it diffuses the light (you can buy a frosted glass film to put on your window and it’s pretty cheap). Unfiltered sunlight can also cause excessive algal blooms, which can outcompete everything in your jar. For best results, I would recommend using an LED lamp.
It is important to note that natural sunlight provides a greater growth potential than LEDs and is therefore technically better. However due to the extreme changes in light intensity your ecospheres will experience throughout the year, I prefer the use of LED lamps as they keep conditions much more stable which maximizes success.
Do not use a limited colour range grow lamp, use a simple white light lamp. Be careful not to over-light your ecosphere as this can cause algal blooms, the lighting in the picture above is way too bright and was taken when I was still relatively inexperienced. You are better off giving it the same light level as it would get on a window seal, which is why I ended up going with the frosted glass window.
Temperature
This one is extremely simple: If the jar is cool to the touch, it is fine. If it is warm to the touch, then that is not good. If you find your ecosphere overheating, it is important that you move it to a cooler place with less direct sunlight. In my experience, the maximum temperature an ecosphere can tolerate is around 28°C (roughly 82°F).