Plants – Wild Hearts Wild Life

In March of this year, I was (perhaps strangely) excited to add 5 tiny Marimo balls to my collection of house plants. To err on the side of caution, I decided to quarantine my moss balls for 6 months. I wanted to be 100% sure that they weren't contaminated by zebra mussels. For the foreseeable future, I plan on keeping my Marimo balls in their own jar. So I don't have to worry about contaminating one of my aquariums however, zebra mussels are a.... not good. I gave myself anxiety thinking about how I'd explain to my landlord why our septic pipes are clogged with invasive mussels, and that was enough for me to accept such a long quarantine period for mt Marimo friends. https://wildheartswildlife.com/how-to-quarantine-marimo-balls/ And here we are now, a bit over six months later! As I explained in my quarantine post (link above) my Marimo balls spent the past 6+ months in a boring, bare-bottom jar. I've been looking forward to them completing quarantine so that I could finally decorate their jar! This post contains affiliate links, notably Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of our links and make a purchase we will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks so much for your support! Gathering My Supplies I decided to quarantine my Marimo balls in the jar that they'd continue to call home even after quarantine, so you may have seen them in their jar already. I went with this 1 gallon "egg jar" from Amazon. The size is perhaps a bit overkill for my teeny tiny Marimo balls. But they will grow...eventually. I've noticed in the past 6 months the lid of the jar has warped slightly, I'm guessing just from the humidity associated with holding water. The lid seems to be designed more to contain dry products however, for me, the lid looking a tiny bit wonky doesn't make or break the jar. It still looks cute! The wonkiness is barely noticeable, especially from further away. Can I just strangely point out that, at the time of writing this, the description of the jar on Amazon contains the phrase "Master, please take me home". So yeah...that's a thing. For the substrate in my jar, for an added pop of color I got "2.7 lbs Lapis Lazuli Small Tumbled Chips Natural Crushed Stones Home Indoor Decorative Gravel Irregular Shaped Quartz Crystal Pieces Bonsai Rocks Blue Small for Jewelry Making, Wedding Gifts Décor". Wow, that's a product name. One 2.7 lb bag was enough to cover the bottom of my 1 gallon jar, and I think they look nice. I have an old-fashioned glass aquarium thermometer that I just happened to have laying around. Something like this, if you want to buy one. Then....ok, this next thing is stupid. I saw someone from Reddit who lived in another country post a picture of their Marimo balls and they had these adorable little glass Marimo marbles. I HAD to have them. It took me forever to find a store that had them in the US, but I did eventually find them for sale here. Yes, I spent $20 on two small marbles that look somewhat like little Marimo balls. Sigh. Lastly, while on my quest to find stupid marble Marimo balls I came across this plushie Marimo on Etsy. Super cute right? The shipping on this guy was kind of slow, and I got him after the Etsy estimated arrival time, but that's ok. Maybe just something to keep in mind if you're purchasing as a gift. I got the smallest size (5'') plush because he matches the size of the top of my Marimo jar, which is where he now resides. https://wildheartswildlife.com/what-are-marimo-balls-why-do-people-keep-them/ Setting Up My Marimo Jar I mean... I'm not sure I really need to give instructions here. Thankfully, keeping Marimo balls isn't rocket science. I set up their jar, give them a stir every now and then, change their water every now and then. I keep my Marimo ball jar next to a low-light window. I know it's not super recommended to keep them near a window because they don't like direct sunlight, but I keep them near our bedroom window and 98% of the time I forget to open the curtains. The other 2% of the time when I remember seems to provide them with enough low-level light to keep them happy. https://wildheartswildlife.com/what-is-the-ideal-temperature-for-marimo-balls-tips-for-dealing-with-temperature-extremes/ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SShR783psZQ Cool Decoration Ideas? If you keep Marimo balls too, how did you decorate your Marimo containers? I think I already more than proved that I'm a sucker for impulse purchasing useless Marimo-themed products, so go ahead and contact me if you have any you'd like to share! ——————— Unfortunately, Wild Hearts Wild Life has been dealing with content scrappers stealing our content and posting it to other websites without permission. If you’re seeing this article posted anywhere besides wildheartswildlife.com it means you are seeing it on a content scalper’s site. Please consider contacting us to let us know, and stopping by to visit on our actual site! Thank you!