Inspired by a couple of other YouTube channels (Life in Jars? and Journey Into the Microscosmos), this YouTuber began an awesome experiment—in hopes of creating a sealed ecosphere on his windowsill, he took some muddy pond water and placed it in a jar. As there are some forms of life in it already, the YouTuber who curates the channel Atomic Shrimp monitors the glass jar as it is rapidly coming alive.
According to its creator, the channel Atomic Shrimp is about ideas. “Ideas that lead to crafts, inventions and recipes, investigations and new skills. It's also about looking at the world with curiosity and wonder, appreciating the small things, loving the underdog and embracing new things at the same time as cherishing older traditions, or sometimes turning them upside down,” the about section in the YouTube channel reads.
He posts regular updates on the YouTube channel, so we'd recommend subscribing so you don't miss all the fun stuff! As for now, scroll down below to see the progress that Atomic Shrimp has made in two weeks while watching his jar of life.
More info: Youtube
To begin the experiment, the YouTuber scooped up muddy water from the local pond
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
"About a week ago, I scooped up a jar of murky water from a local pond, sealed it up and put it on my windowsill as an experiment in making a sealed ecosphere," the YouTuber tells in a video which now has over half a million views.
He placed the glass jar on his windowsill
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
"Right from the start, there were signs of life in this jar," the YouTuber says. "But let's see what happened over the first week or so," he teases.
The guy noted that the jar had signs of life in it right from the start
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
As the video shows, after the first night of sitting on the windowsill, the water had cleared up a bit. However, the only activity that the Atomic Shrimp saw so far was the flatworms.
Later on, more small organisms appeared, like this "green speck," for example
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
After one more day passed, the water in the jar cleared up even more and this time, the creator of the ecosphere could make out some small crustaceans. "Later I started to see daphnias too," he says in the video.
Which turned out to be a hydra—a carnivorous freshwater coelenterate
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
The hydra that the YouTuber noticed has slender tentacles, which are armed with stinging cells.
Later, other forms of life started to appear as the water became clearer
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
"As the days roll on, the water becomes clearer, but also, the population of little swimming things has increased," the guy says in the video.
But naturally, not every one of these small organisms are easily identified
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
"There are also some little specks that seem to move in a sort of spiraling-swimming motion," the voice-over in the experiment video tells us. "[I] think these may be single-cell organisms such as ciliates, possibly paramecium."
But there are more and more of them with each passing day
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
The YouTuber has not yet identified the worm above and calls him a "wiggling, swimming thing." According to him, the worm is about 10-15 mm long.
The YouTuber also noticed a lot of exciting behaviors
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
One interesting note was that "the hunting methods of the hydra are actually quite wasteful. I caught quite a few shots of it capturing and stinging a prey animal only to later drop it without eating it," the experimenter says.
Watch the video of the glass jar over the first week
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
And how it changed in two weeks' time
Image credits: Atomic Shrimp
Don't forget to hit the subscribe button to see what happens next in this exciting jar of life! "I'm really looking forward to seeing how things play out in the coming days and weeks," Atomic Shrimp says. I think it's safe to say that we're more than excited as well!
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