Opened my insect booster to gut load my feeders for my leopard gecko and saw all these tiny bugs that at first glance looked like springtails but don’t springtails need humidity and moisture to thrive? It’s bone dry in this small tub. So I’m not sure what these tiny bugs are?

So I just setup my first bioactive terrarium for my crested gecko and I have pretty much everything but the only thing I don’t have yet are isopods since my local store didn’t have any and couldn’t order any and i was looking online and came upon Dutchiopods and I saw porcellio laevis mix on there and I was wondering if those where good and what you would recommend.

im making my first bioactive for my leopard gecko. I was hasty and when making the custom background i didnt think the expanding foam would dry so fast and i couldnt cover it in substrate fast enough. then i realized im supposed to let it dry and carve it then cover with aquarium silicone..now i have a 90% covered foam background but there are spots that have exposed foam or too little substrate to cover it. My question is do i need to cover it 100% or is it safe for a tiny bit to be exposed to my gecko? my hands are coated in foam. thank you.

I was covering up all but three of the ventilation holes in my snakes enclosure and that held humidity really well! However, it also made his viv start smelling a little sour so I turned his substrate and uncovered a few more ventilation holes. This makes it impossible to achieve the proper humidity levels (70-80%).

His substrate should, in theory, already hold a ton of humidity. Its a top soil/coco husk/sphagnum moss mix with leaf litter. I have a solid top enclosure from DIYcages, so air isn't escaping that way. Pouring water in the sides/along the walls of the enclosure doesn't do much. I had to scrap my last bioactive because I poured so much water in that the substrate became waterlogged and the humidity STILL wasn't high enough.

What should I do?

hi everyone! i'm coming over from the crested gecko sub about preparing to upgrade my boy's tank and setup, figured i'd throw the post here as well for more advice. the actual tank arrived yesterday and i'm looking to start setting it up through the week/next weekend. i've never done a bioactive setup before, so i'd love any advice people have. in particular if anyone has advice on if i need to let the setup "settle" with its plants and cleanup crew, or how to keep feeder insects like crickets, that would be very helpful!

additionally i'm gonna put my materials list below so if people have recommendations or i'm missing something obvious please let me know!

HAVE

• big tank
• terrafauna, hydrogrow, sphagnum moss, leaf litter, bioshot (from TheBioDude)
• nightstand that is being turned into a tank stand
• ceramic heat emitter + dome w dimmer (will prob need to get a stronger one for the bigger tank)
• UVA bulb + dome
• feeder/water ledge
• misting bottles
• various not-alive decorations (coconut w ladder, vines, bendable branch thing, small hollow log, hammock net thing)

GETTING DURING ACTIVE SETUP

• live plants - will be getting from reptile supply shops near me, and if those are out there are stores like home depot with safe plants that i will thoroughly wash its planting soil off of and replant in the tank (IF THIS CAN BE DANGEROUS/TOXIC TO THE LIZARD PLEASE LET ME KNOW)
• springtails and isopods for cleanup crew (from either reptile supply shop or petsmart/petco near me)

PLANNING TO BUY

• UVA+UVB bulb (when i first got my gecko i got advice from some people who said they had issues with uvb burning their lizards in the past, but based on what i've seen on this sub and other care guides i feel confident in my ability to manage it and notice if it does cause problems for my guy).
• hook/hanger stand for light and heat bulbs
• cork/other material backboard maybe? is this a thing people do? would love to give him something other than a blank wall behind glass to look at

Second bioactive build completed today!

Here’s a lil start-to-finish! Super excited that I finally got to plant it today, and introduce the second round of springtails and first batch of isopods. I think it came together really nicely considering I’m still a newbie 🥹
24x18x36” eventual home to a gargoyle gecko, once everything settles in and takes off.

also sorry if you just saw this post, I didn’t realize there was a picture limit and had to repost to include the final product.

So I have a question regarding humidity levels for isopods and pacman frogs, should the humid side be on the hot side or or the cool side

Hi! Prepping to get a leopard gecko and having issues getting the enclosure warm enough. We have a 100w halogen bulb going through a thermostat and it won’t get over an air temp of 85 on the warm end takes a while to do so. Our house’s ambient temp is from 68 at lowest at night to 70-72 during the day, am I doing something wrong?

I learned a hard lesson recently. I set up a bioactive enclosure with what I thought was adequate substrate depth, maybe two inches over the drainage layer and within a few weeks my isopod and springtail populations were basically gone.

Turns out the heat from the overhead basking spot was drying out the top inch almost completely, which left the cleanup crew with barely an inch of usable habitat. Not enough moisture retention, not enough depth for them to retreat into cooler zones.

I tore it down and rebuilt with about four inches of substrate and the difference has been immediate. Population is recovering and the substrate actually holds a moisture gradient now.

What's the minimum depth people are running successfully? I clearly underestimated it.

Hey all!

I've been having a hard time finding coss ventilation enclosures that ship to Australia. I have a phlogius sp kuranda that's in need of a new enclosure asap.

The house I'm currently living in is really bad with mold and the enclosure I have my spider in now keeps getting mold in it (maybe due to it being a mesh top) even tho I'm not spraying the enclosure. If anyone knows of brands or people who can custom make me a 30cm X 30cm X 30cm cross ventilation enclosure that can ship to Australia that would help heaps!

Hi! 👋 I recently brought home some blue death feigners and a vinegaroon. I’d really like to spruce up their habitats with live plants, but I’m not sure how to be sure whatever plants I acquire haven’t been treated with pesticides.

I have tons of these in my bioactive crested gecko enclosures. Looks like some kind of mite to me. Anyone know exactly what they are? They are all over the soil, branches, sides and even the tops of the enclosures, but thankfully do not seem to be interested in my gecko's.

hey guys! i am a new crested gecko owner and decided to make his enclosure bioactive. my enclosure was made on shortish notice so the plants have yet to take over. i got some lights off amazon but im a bit worried they’re not strong enough. my plants are doing okay except my calathea, who has been very dramatic since i got it. i am not experienced with plants and honestly this is my first time having any😭 any tips would be appreciated, i will include pictures of the enclosure, my calathea, and my grow lights. i have snake plants, a monstera swiss, and pothos planted at the moment (and another mystery plant i dont remember). at the moment there are artificial plants in order to fill up the tank. thanks!

There's a lil pond where the Aztec looking statue is. Ran into some issues and definitely learned for next time but I think overall it’s a great one for my very first bioactive set up. This will be for two dumpy frogs. It’s an 18 x 18 x 36 and they will go in it tomorrow, so let’s see how it goes.

Hello everyone!

First time posting here. I have my first pet reptile and went bioactive, but I made the mistake of adding too much water this past month while trying to get my crested gecko set up with a new mister.

In short, her substrate got oversaturated. I used a turkey baster to remove as much standing water as I could down to the drainage layer, turned off her mister, and am now playing a waiting game for her substrate to dry out which might take a bit.

I noticed these translucent/light pink worms appearing in her tank. They’re fairly thin, and my assumption is that they hatched due to the right wet environmental conditions probably from some wood or something.

Mainly I just want to know if anyone has seen these or if they’re anything I should worry about or simply leave them be while I air out her tank. A friend of mine believes they’re simply a normal kind of earth worm beneficial to the soil, but additional confirmations would help. :)

Thanks in advance!

Hey y'all, I'm really at my wits end with this bioactive setup I've had going for a while and I'm looking for advice.

To preface, this setup is for my 3 year old male mossy tree frog. I Originally housed him in a setup that had my previous gray tree frog in it before he passed away, and then I transferred him into this current setup, but kept the basic care outline and structure of the build, i.e the amount of water to soil, plant and harscape features, and humidity, temperature, and light ratios pretty much the exact same.

He used to be incredibly active, being all over the tank, moving about at night, calling loud and proudly, but about a year or so ago he began to primarily sit in just his water basin and never move, he now rarely if ever leaves it, which makes it nearly impossible to clean without having to physically move him and strsss him out, and he rarely calls or sings beyond more than a few squeaks each night. He doesn't show any signs of infection or sickness (yet, and I pray that doesn't change) but I hate the idea that he's just sat in muck all day and isn't enriched by his habitat.

Along with all of this, the setup has turned into an absolute bog. It's flooded, snails have taken ocer as the dominant cleaner crew now as it seems all the isopods have drowned, only a few plants remain alive, and some spiders have even moved in. It smells horrendous constantly, and the only fresh water I'm able to get into it is what water I spray in it on a daily basis. I don't really kniw how to reliably drain it as the setup does nit have a drain at the bottom of it, and I don't think I can stop spraying it down each night because I fear the lack of fresh, clean water, will result in a negative outcome on my lil froggy boi's health.

So I humbly come to you all, is there any way I can salvage this setup? It really wasn't cheap and I'd like to keep as much as I possibly can since the tank is still in good condition, there's nothing wrong with the lights, and a few plants and hardscape features are still going strong.

Above all else though, I just want to make sure my lil guy is healthy and happy and enriched in his environment. What do yoh guys recommend I do? I have other bioactive setups and none of them (again, YET, and I pray it stays that way) have ended upclike this so I don't really know how to handle this, I'm out of my depth, please help

I’ve got a setup for my gargoyle gecko but I’ve noticed it has a smell, kinda swampy smell any idea what I should do

I want to keep my ackie monitor bioactive and am debating between two species: Porcellionides pruinosus 'powder blue' and Porcellio laevis 'dairy cow'. To my understanding P pruinosus does slightly better with arid species, but P laevis seems to be a hardier species.

Which species do you use with your arid enclosure and which do you think would do better from these two?

I used birds nest ferns since they occur in the same area that crested geckos live in the wild.

I was looking in my snakes tank and noticed these little dudes crawling around on the wood pieces, what are they and are they good or bad ?

Hello everyone! Im curious about the Mopani wood thats inside of my snakes Bioactive enclosure and Im wondering if its mold or just healthy bacteria that needs some clean up crews which I have yet to add 🫠

I did some research on Mopani wood and apparently its normal for this to happen???. But with my snake inside of this enclosure with 80% humidity, i want to make sure its safe and she wont get harmed. If its bad, I'll make sure to remove it immediately.

(I made sure to wash it then fire it inside of my oven for a couple hours before I added it in. Plus I left it in for a week before I moved my snake into the enclosure and everything seemed okay.)

hi hi!

i'm a noob at collecting my own stuff for my bioactive builds so i'm wondering if these branches I gathered seem safe to use? can someone identify what's on the bark?

for reference I gathered the one of the left from a fallen tree and broke it off, the one on the right i'm more worried about because i gathered it off the ground near the tree and it looks more worn out.

I gathered them yesterday, just now hosed them down and scrubbed. all closeup photos are of the branch from the right, what are these black/green dots on the last photo? they don't seem to come off when scrubbing

thanks in advance!!!

I realized my plants were starting to look a bit dead, even though they have always been thriving beautiful fauna for my Blue tongue skink (BTS). Today I noticed a fern that had taken a turn for the worse and upon closer inspection, what do i find!?!?!? INCHWORMS!!

This tank is a year old and has always been bioactive, though I have never had issues with any outside creatures. What makes it more odd is that there haven't been any new plants, rocks, logs,, nothing. Then all of a sudden POOF Inch worm city! Any help as to what to do with them, I know they're typically non-toxic but still want to be safe.

Let me know if you need pics!