hey everyone tanner of surfer design
here and welcome back to another
terrarium build what i have here is a
flower aquarium and if you saw how to
term episode 2 then you likely remember
this container now you may be wondering
what the heck is a flower aquarium so
what it is is it's meant to be a sort of
a showpiece for flowers specifically the
type that you would get in a bouquet so
they're already chopped off of the plant
and it's just a flower on a stem and if
you see here this is just a little
rubber piece that goes on to the bottom
of the actual glass container and it
creates an airtight seal which will be
great for a terrarium but if you see on
here it has little sort of slots and
what they do is you would just put the
stem of the flower in there and put the
glass container back on top and what's
cool about this container is that
supposedly it has a magnifying effect
now I've tried to look at it and see if
it actually works it doesn't really look
like it does but I don't know we'll say
that it does but we want to turn this
into a terrarium and there are a couple
of ways that we could go about doing
that I could have simply put the
container on the base like that
put the cap on and left it at that
the thing is that this would have been a
pretty standard trim although it's a
even still a cool looking container and
the cap itself would be airtight it
wouldn't be that unique in the
presentation of the container itself now
how we lay out the terrarium could be
pretty cool what I want to do with this
is have it facing down so there's
seemingly no opening to the terrarium
itself but we have a fully set up a
terrarium in there I had been putting
this off for quite a while about a year
because I really couldn't come up with a
plan to make it to areum here with with
the opening being on the bottom but I
came up with a pretty solid way to make
it happen so I have a couple of things
laid out before me and these are gonna
allow us to make the terrarium the
that I had just described what I have
here is some knitting mesh and if you
want to get your hands on this you can
find it pretty fine this is almost as
fine as some of the Windows screen mesh
that I use it's probably a little bit
larger but it will work for this
terrarium I also have some 100% silicone
already in a coking gun and I've
scissors of course so you're probably
wondering how is this gonna allow us to
make the terrarium the way that I had
described bear with me here because this
might not make sense as I'm describing
it but what I'm gonna do is have two
cylinders of knitting mesh one will be
slightly smaller than the other one and
the one that's slightly smaller will
have knitting mesh on the bottom so if
my container here and what I'm gonna do
is make a cylinder of the knitting mesh
right the first the first cylinder which
goes in this will be the larger one I'll
silicone it to the inside of the
container here then once that's dry we
make this next cylinder which will be
slightly smaller and that one will go
inside of the larger one and it will
have a bottom on it as well maybe
thinking even still how is that going to
you to make the terrarium the way that
you had described well
once we have the cylinder the first one
that is in here we can make the
terrarium on the exterior of the
cylinder there will just be an opening
in the middle of the terrarium then one
we have the other one that has the
bottom on it we can build it the rest of
the terrarium and that stick it up
inside of here and it will be as simple
as that now if that didn't make sense to
you stay with me as I am a hundred
percent certain this is gonna work so
the first thing I'm going to do is just
kind of clean off this container with a
microfiber cloth and I had previously
cleaned it with alcohol pretty
thoroughly so I don't really think I
need to do that again
looks pretty clean and I'm gonna
probably first thing I'll do is just cut
this to manageable size
I already know that it is wide enough
that it could go in here and it really
doesn't need to be that tall so what I'm
gonna do is just cut along and I don't
need to measure it or anything because
the grid itself will show me how to cut
it yeah I think that would be good so
now what I have to do is figure out how
much of it I have to cut off it looks
like I have to cut off this way that is
like I should explain a little bit
better it is a little bit more than an
inch and you'll see what I mean by this
in just a second
so cut that off now it looks to be about
right I'm gonna zip tie it up here just
to test it
any luck this should fit in there yeah
it even looks like it might be well yeah
that looks like it might be too tall I'm
gonna cut a little bit more off of it
naughty now I might even tie this with
some fishing line instead of zip ties
since they're kind of bulky but anyways
put that in there that yeah that is
gonna work okay so now I decided that I
was gonna tie this up with some pushing
on instead of these zip ties I think
they're just a little bit too bulky and
will cause more problems later on let me
get some of this and what I'm gonna do
is just lay two of these on top of each
other and then just kind of weave it in
and out
so we've got the first cylinder cut and
put together and maybe what I was saying
earlier might make sense now but now
we're gonna cut the smaller one and this
is the one that's actually gonna go
inside of this one
perfect so it's the right width now I
want to get cut to the right height
so now food should work
perfect it's alright it's a little bit
taller I'm not really concerned about
that but what I want to do now is
actually silicone this one onto the
inside of there and the way that I'll do
that is quite simple I'm just going to
run a bead of silicone on the inside of
here and then stick it right on top I'll
just do need a silicon all around here
doesn't need to be pretty cuz you're not
gonna see it ever then what we're gonna
do is hopefully just slide this on there
and it has partially stuck on there so
I'm just gonna let whatever's on there
now dry and then we'll add more silicon
as needed once that stuff cures so now
it's about a day later and I got this
all taken care of I actually put the
additional silicon on before I went to
bed the one day and neglected to record
that but basically all that I did was
just you know talk a little bit of extra
silicon and there it wasn't really much
but it's dried in there and I think
maybe now you can really start to see
what I was telling you about so well I
actually build land or a terrarium if
you will around this so you won't see it
and then this which will make in just a
moment will go up inside of here and
that too will have land on it so in
theory it should create a seamless look
however before we move forward with
anything else I want to just kind of
clean up some of the still account on
here with the glade
and now I'm just kind of cleaning off
the outside of this a little bit with
the microfiber cloth just so I can get a
better idea of what I'm working with we
can actually clean it again later on and
I'm gonna have to clean out the inside
of this as well
so at this point I'm content without
clean this is and initially I was kind
of concerned that I put too much
silicone on there but as you could see
once it's on the base you can't even see
any of that so it's gonna look really
cool once we get it going here but what
I have to do next is actually make the
mesh container if you will that goes
inside of here so let me just test it
out real quick pretty sure it's just the
exact size of this it's a snug fit or
actually it's like the silicone it
sticks to it so you can't really like
pull it in and out which I guess is a
good thing because once it's in there
will be it'll be in there but I'm gonna
cut some more fishing line and we'll put
it together just like the other one the
first one that we made it was actually
overlapped this one I have to make side
by side like that and the reason is that
it won't fit in there flush if we don't
and that about does it for this one see
this is really strong I actually think
that might have been a better solution
than the zip ties not necessarily just
because it's lower profile but I mean
that thing's not coming apart this
should just fit right inside of there
I'm not gonna put it in all the way you
get the idea so now I have this round
piece and what I'll do is cut it out to
the dimensions of this
and you know perfect fit so now I got to
cut out some more fishing line and we
will tie this segment on to there as
well at this point I pretty much have it
all tied up I just got to finish it off
here and this is gonna be pretty cool
this turned out really well just like
that and this should just slide right on
out and I can probably actually put some
vaseline in between these so that they
slide together easier but we will cross
that bridge once it comes hopefully all
that jargon that I was spinning off at
the beginning of the video hopefully it
makes sense now
basically what I'm gonna do is fill this
up with rocks create a false bottom in
here put the dirt on it and then plant
it with plants and then with this part
of the container again I followed up
with rocks on the outside creating the
false bottom and also use a mesh barrier
on top of those rocks and then on top of
that put dirt plants moss that sort of
thing and then once both of these are
plant trays essentially because they
won't be a terrarium yet just slide this
on top of it and then it will in in
theory at least create a seamless
looking environment now I'm probably
gonna have to try to conceal this in
some way or just let it grow in over
time and hide itself but that's
essentially what's gonna happen there
before we can proceed any further I have
to get rid of this contraption on this
cap so I'm just gonna cut away at it
until it's gone I tried cutting it off
with the razor blade but I feel like it
was just ineffective and I was also
concerned that I would cut into the
bottom of this because I really needed
to
stay the way that it is so I'm just
gonna meticulously or tediously whatever
you think would be the proper term just
cut into this and remove sections a
little bit at a time
so after about a half hour of chipping
away at this I finally got that piece or
moved here solved the excess from it and
the reason that I had to do that was
this piece right here it will be flush
with the bottom here and if we would
have had that little protrusion it would
get in the way of that once it would be
on here and I set these aside for just a
moment and talk about what I have here I
just have some Windows screen mesh here
this is typically what I like to use for
false bottoms this with a combination of
rocks you've probably seen that in a lot
of my other videos and if you're not
familiar with the false bottom process
follow this link up here and it will
really just go into detail about this
whole thing and so what I have here is
just some gravel from Home Depot it's
about $3 $4 for a 50-pound bag so you
really can't go wrong you could also use
aquarium gravel really any type of fine
gravel that you can find and what I'm
going to do is just put about an inch of
it in here
so if got a layer of gravel down in here
or whatever type of false bottom I could
have used I feel like for this since the
mending mesh already has holes in it and
whatnot this was probably the best way
to go but I'm just gonna set this on top
of my Windows screen mesh and I'm gonna
cut out a just a square to start because
it will be easier to manage and then a
circle which will be slightly larger
than the diameter of this it doesn't
have to be perfect no one's gonna see it
and this will just go right on top of
here
and the reason that I did it a little
bit larger is so that the substrate
doesn't get down into that rock layer
and there's a number of reasons why we
don't want that to curve if you watch
that false bottom demonstration you'll
learn all about that but we've got that
mesh down in there and it's good I'm
just gonna set a few more rocks on top
of it just to keep it in place we'll set
that aside next we have to get the
gravel in here but before we do that I
have a microfiber cloth right here and
my tweezers and using my tweezers I'm
just gonna try to do the best I can to
clean off the glass and here using this
microfiber cloth so now we're gonna put
rocks in here and the mesh as well this
is really gonna be easier said than done
I think what I'll do is put the rocks in
like this and then just get them to fall
down in there
okay so I got a decent amount of gravel
in there and now the container is a
total mess so I'm going to do is get
this microfiber cloth once more and we
will do we can to clean out
so as I was cleaning this out it just
wasn't working for me and part of that
is because the gravel itself had dirt on
it so I just thought why don't I just do
this get my mixer and just spray it out
and it will eventually or it should at
least drain out of here because it's all
yep so now that I have this more or less
cleaned out I'm gonna get some paper
towel and dry it off because I don't
want any of that excess water in there
and I want to be able to see so let me
get my tweezers and from cleaning that
out I already have a decent amount of
moisture in here so whenever we add
water later on I'm probably not gonna
add very much so now that I evolved my
gravel in place I'm going to basically
cut a circle out of this that has
another circle cut out of the middle and
I'm just gonna eyeball this it doesn't
really have to be perfect
so that looks like it would be good
enough I actually kind of just shape it
a little bit okay and then I will cut
this out into the center like that a
little donut of sorts so all that I'm
gonna do is just feed it up through the
bottom of this and then try my best to
get it in place
and that's really the whole challenge of
this terrarium building the land and
whatnot in here that will be really
simple it's getting everything in here
up to the bottom so okay it's almost
like I need a hook
yeah actually here I'll make one so I
just got some copper wire cut it and
then bent it into little hook I think
this will help me out tremendously so
now I'm gonna start putting the
substrate up in here
what I'm using is that ABG mix and if
you want to know how to make it just
follow the link
I however altered this one slightly I
added a little bit of potting soil in it
organic potting soil I'm just
experimenting a little bit with this
terrarium so I figured I'd mix up the
substrate as well
as you can see it's pretty difficult to
get this in here luckily I have this
little thing I can just kind of even out
the substrate and I don't think that
planting it is gonna be as hard as it is
getting any of this stuff up in here but
we'll see
I apologize if I don't have as nice of
camera angles and overall filming in
this video as I typically would it's
just it's really hard to try to show
what I'm doing right now it's really
hard to do to something else I'm gonna
try is because this was really hard to
even out with my fingers I'm gonna use a
paper towel with the tweezers and this
actually seems to be working well but I
need to get it at a different angle this
is also kind of stressful if you will
because I have almost dropped this
container several times it's not easy to
hold it and work on the inside at the
same time and I am thinking that that is
enough substrate looks pretty cool so
now I'm gonna add the charcoal and you
might be wondering why I didn't put it
in the other part of the terrarium and I
did it simply because of convenience
reasons I think it would have been
pretty tough to try to get charcoal in
there so I just put a little bit in
there
and then we will top it off with the
substrate which I wish it was that easy
to get the substrate and the other one
but whatever the thing with this
terrarium that really limits me is the
fact that I'm not able to open it to
maintain it so with that said choosing
the plants was really something that I
had to keep in mind now I'm not gonna
add really anything too substantial in
here
normally in a terrarium this size I
would add oak leaf creeping fig or fight
if I guess remulak were folia I can't
add that because
once it starts going it will really kind
of take this over and fill it in so I
have to choose plants that will stay
relatively small and that aren't gonna
fill up the space so actually I have a
few patches of moss the mosses that I
have here are pretty low growing now I
don't actually know what kind they are
unfortunately they're just ones that
I've sourced locally so I'm gonna do is
and this one's on a piece of bark but
which is nice because it'll make it
easier for me to put in here and most of
the ones that you'll see me put in here
actually are on bark but I'm just gonna
set it in here and then use my tweezers
to kind of put it in place and I'm just
gonna take out substrate as necessary
once again this is like pretty stressful
trying to get this stuff in here this is
what it would be nice to have a
cameraman instead of my tripod that's
why my cameraman of choice
although I did say that this is mainly
gonna be a moss terrarium there are a
couple of plants that I will be adding I
think you guys will think are pretty
cool and I also want to do a fair amount
of hard scape in here so if you see I
got this nice piece of drift what if I
can just made it and this is actually
covered in moss which is cool so it will
grow eventually cool so that will
actually cover up some of that knitting
mesh if it looks like it will show
through at all as I said like the moss
will grow over it in time but I would
prefer to not see any of it initially or
wherever so I like that I think that
would be pretty cool
once the moss kind of grows around it
and will have plants in here as I said
so as you can see I intend to have this
the side with the log on it and tend to
have that be the front of it and then
what you're seeing me build now will
actually be the background so me
that's nice moss I've had it grown in my
varium for quite a while I actually see
that there's a piece of sphagnum Moss on
it which originally want that in here
since it grows kind of large but if it
mainly sticks to the background I
actually think it would be cool because
it will add a little bit of depth
now I'm gonna start adding the plants
and I think that I actually have to
remove a little bit of substrate from
this but if you've seen my video on how
to propagate moss here I'll put a little
link up there in case you haven't
basically all of these mosses that you
see I got them locally from some woods
behind my house and a lot of times
plants will come with them and you can
do what you can to clean them off and
whatnot but inevitably you'll have some
other plants that will kind of hitchhike
and what happened was I got all these
really nice ferns that came in with them
and they don't grow very large so I
think it will be a cool addition for
this so we'll kind of have that piece of
wood up front with a couple of friends
growing in the background of it and I
think that will look really cool so
that's why I'm kind of removing some of
this substrate since it has some on it
and since this is already acclimated to
the conditions of the terrarium I'm
fairly confident that it will do well in
here if it doesn't I mean it's not the
end of the world but I obviously would
prefer that it did here's some more of
it it kind of grew this is actually on a
piece of wood
yeah that'll look real cool I think it's
gonna be a challenge getting it into the
terrarium itself but I think that it
will be rewarding and as of now I don't
know what kind of friend this is if I'm
able to find it out I'll put it
somewhere on the screen or mention it in
the video description but as of now I
don't know what this is
unfortunately so that's I mean that's
pretty much all that we need on there
out a little bit of moss to kind of
kickstart it growing over this in case
we have some that sticks over okay so
now we're looking at the back again I'm
gonna add one more piece whoops
it fell off I'm gonna add one more patch
of this moss so now what I'm gonna do is
water this main section and to do so I'm
just gonna use a pipette so got this
here my little pipette and I'm just
gonna kind of so unfortunately that
pipette didn't work I couldn't get it to
go up in there if I would have had a
syringe that would work but I have a
mister and the reason I didn't want to
do this initially was because I didn't
want to put too much water in here with
some of the water added now I'm just
gonna get paper towel on tweezers again
and just kind of clean up this mess I
just made as you can see I got quite the
mess going on right now
and what I'm gonna do is just add a few
strands of moss to this one put them up
front well this way I actually so yeah
we'll put some here so we're just about
ready to put this into the main
terrarium the only thing is that we need
some springtails
so what I have here is
just a piece of charcoal with
springtails on it and I'm just gonna
flick them off into there you're
probably thinking well they're probably
like King all over your table and
whatnot the thing is like once they get
in this substrate I doubt they're gonna
try to go anywhere else there you can
see them crawling around on there so
let's get it in the terrarium now and so
really I got to do this just right or
I'm gonna mess it up so got this and put
the ferns in first
just hope that I don't move that piece
of driftwood at all I'm trying to be
very careful it's moving slightly
hmm there's a way to so now I've got to
put the cap on it
of course because as is water and air
it's actually not airtight right now so
I go do is just slip this on like so you
can put it on the base and then we'll
clean it off with the microfiber cloth
[Music]
that about does it guys I hope you
enjoyed this demonstration
it's definitely of the more unique
terrariums that you've probably seen on
this channel thus far however I will
mention that you don't need a flower
aquarium to do this you might have
thought hey I can't get my hands on that
or you don't want to get that it's
totally fine if you have containers like
this where they're kind of dramatically
shaped and by that I mean it's kind of
small on the bottom and it goes upward
into a larger container like this as you
could imagine you could do the same
exact thing in something like that or
even something like this and say the cap
was a screw-on it's really not gonna
make a difference you'll just screw it
on and you can do the same exact thing
so as always I appreciate you guys and I
thank you for watching as this really
wouldn't be possible without you if you
like this video definitely hit the
thumbs up I have a lot more creative
content coming up in the future just
like this so if you're not yet
subscribed definitely do so so you can
catch it as soon as it's up and that's
it guys I'll see you next time and peace