A brief history of my self sustaining ecosystem

About 2.5 years ago, a friend gave me a gift for which I had been lusting. Essentially, it's a self-sustaining ecosystem (or at least it is designed to work as such, although I have seen it fail almost ever time in stores). What am I talking about? Aqua Babies! Aqua Babies has a website whose url is aquababies.com. Perhaps you've gone to Longs (or suchlike stores) and seen this product- It happened to be a sealed plastic container which efficiently houses the following:

1. a fish (cellular respiration)
2. a plant (photosynthesis)

This small world will live as long as it receives radiant energy. What I find interesting in stores is the plant is almost always plastic, which means that the largest animal will inevitably eat all the smaller ones, before an eventual death from starvation. On the other hand, there is the underlying potential that the smaller ones could "band together" and consume the largest organism, but that's another story altogether. In effect- the plant eats the animal's shit, and makes air for the animal to breath (as well as providing a food source).

After receiving my own example of this eco-invention, I quickly realized what would come to pass. I received a small cube about 4 inches tall by 3 inches wide. Inside, there were 3 shrimps, 1 larger white one, and 2 smaller red ones. Within a week, the largest shrimp had consumed the 2 smaller ones, I knew it was because the ecosystem was unbalanced due to the fact that the plant was a piece of plastic. In effect, only one half of the magical equation was present. I dropped some elodea into the water in the hopes that the plant would start to balance out the problem. I knew I had made an error in that I dropped a fresh water plant into a salt water ecosystem, after a while a large amount of algae had started to grow on the inside of the plastic barrier. My hypothesis- I have often noticed that Elodea had algae growing on it, so the algae simply had colonized a new ecosystem.

I always think how interesting that humans can create entire artificial worlds at will, that in effect serve no purpose. Basically, anybody who has a fish tank has already "played god." Obviously, science doesn't have to conform to what people think is right or wrong, only what is true, and I suppose that's why I like to learn about it so much, because I'm really only worried about what's true (measurable).

I can't remember if I put additional blue-green algae inside the ecosystem or not, I think I did. I had a bunch of capsules of it that I purchased when I went on a camping trip to Humboldt County, and used it for my beta fish as a way to increase oxygen concentrations in their small and stagnant glass bowls. All that matters is that in the end, there was a large amount of algae in the bowl, which turns CO2 and sunlight into O2, which the shrimp in turn breathes. To return the favor, the animal excretes Nitrogen, which the plant consumes. Both organisms depend on each other for survival, so balance is necessary and integral to life cycles.

Now, years later it's interesting to see that the shrimp is still alive! All this time that small green box that I never do anything has provided a home for both the animal and the plant. Life is so inspiring in that it always finds a way. It colonizes from planet to planet. It can exist everywhere on earth, even at the bottom of the ocean, or deep inside caves and caverns where sulfur is the only food source. Life always finds a way to create more life, over time. What I appreciate most about Aqua Babies is that you don't have to do anything to take care of your pet. In effect, it takes care of itself, and that's convenient.

I'm interested in my self sustaining ecosystem because I'm interested in nitrogen and gas cycles. These cycles of life need to be balanced in space travel, especially if we're talking about long term travel. I plan on genetically engineering lichen to produce a false atmosphere on mars (see the greening of mars) but I know that on a more fundamental level, I know that in order to creatively direct a false atmosphere through space (and time?) then I have to know my nitrogen cycles?