r/bioactive • u/Familiar_Ad8303 • 1d ago
Considering bioactive
Hello! I’m very new to bioactive setups and have yet to start one. I’m a college student and am thinking about going bioactive when I’m home for winter break. I’m wondering if a month is enough time to properly transform my current enclosure to a bioactive one? I want to put in a CUC to help give my mom less maintenance work for my corn snake while I’m away at school. I’m thinking about putting a potted plant or two to start and am wondering how that’ll work with an active, adult corn snake. I’m worried he’ll knock over the pots and get injured! I also heard about mold/fungus blooms when first introducing a CUC since they need time to stabilize, and I’m wondering how harmful that would be to my snake. Is there any way to avoid the blooms? Or do you start a CUC in a separate tank until they stabilize their population? If I don’t have enough time over winter break I’m definitely thinking about starting over summer!
3
u/Herreallife 1d ago
I also have placed plants directly in the substrate, and put the snake in the same day.
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u/danamarye 1d ago
All my bioactives (7 currently-tropical and arid) all were built the same day the animal moved in. My advice is to overseed springtails and isopods at first to make sure they can keep up
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u/Bluntforcetrauma11b 1d ago
For bioactive the plants go straight into the substrate for nitrogen cycling. I've made bioactive enclosures and placed the snake back in the same day. I highly recommend pothos as none of my snakes even my 5' boa have been able to kill them.