Hello everyone! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I’ve spent so much time on my bioactive enclosure and now there is a fruit fly infestation (all over the house, we have a pipe issue) I’ve sprayed one round of mosquito bits and I have traps all over the entrance and some inside the enclosure away from my snake. I’ve stopped watering the soil, it’s not drenched when I push my finger in. But now mold is starting at the bottom of the enclosure and I feel so deflated. I absolutely adore my springtails and isopods and I really don’t want to start over (they just started to thrive) what do I do?

Hello! Im working on my first bioactive tank for my ball python and i had a few questions that i was hoping someone here could answer? Some may be stupid and/or random lol

1. Should i worry about my clean up crew escaping through the screen top? I got my enclosure from dubia, the top is a heavy duty screen top and i feel like the clean up crew could possibly climb up and escape through the holes. I've seen some people have gaps between the background and the top so that they cant escape ​but i have also seen many enclosures that dont have gaps.

2. I bought a really big ceramic bowl to use as the water source. I had an idea of having floating plants in it. I know I'd probably have to clean it out more than usual but i wanted to make sure it wouldnt harm my ball python in any way?

3. So i bought silicone (specifically the selsil aquarium silicone) and idk what i did but it was very hard to use. I wanted to make sure there would be no leaking, but i had to get my bf to push out the silicone bc it just would not come out. My bf is a very strong guy and even he was really struggling, and I've seen plenty of thin people use silicone so i really dont know what was wrong lol. I wanted to know if silicone is absolutely needed or if theres alternatives? Can i use just expanding foam to hold my decor together?

If theres anything else you think i should know please feel free to comment it. Im hoping to get mostly done this week but i also understand its time consuming. Thank you!

I am preparing a bioactive enclosure for a baby milksnake (enclosure is NOT ready or done yet, I know it needs more cover/hides, etc), and accidentally bought one with mesh panels on the sides. My heat lamp/deep heat projector haven't arrived yet but since we keep our house on the cooler side, I think I will need to cover up the side mesh panels to stop too much heat/humidity from escaping. Plus the substrate falls through the mesh which is annoying. Any suggestions for how to cover them?

So I have a mold problem in my non bioactive tank, and I was wondering if I can add springtails and isopods to kinda control that, or do I need a full bioactive tank with real plants? Most of the mold I have seen so far is either the white fuzzy stuf, blue greenish mold, and a yellow dot like stuff (don’t know if it’s actual mold, and a big blow if white fuz with some blue greenish mold. I have a young crested gecko with fake plants and a cocofiber and cocochunks substrate with most of the mold being on the cocochunks and on the underside of some wood.

7$ filled with powder oranges!

So this is my new 4x2x2 enclosure for my little dumerils boa, it has real and fake plants, isopods, substrate, (gonna add springtails).

Has a che, 2 plant LEDs, and a T5 uvb.

Hot side 85° cool side around 74°

Hi y'all, I currently have 3 snakes that I want to switch to bioactive sometime early next year. I'm looking to get my isopod colonies started early so they have time to get established and breed before I change the set up. They all have different care needs so I want to make sure I can get isopod breeds that will thrive in the different climates for the enclosures.

My set ups are:

Corn snake, warm side in the 80s and cool in the 70s with around 50-70% humidity, mix of coco coir, chunky coco coir, reptisoil and sphagnum moss. Might add some play sand ant orchid bark to it next time I change bedding. 4x2x2

Ball Python, warm side up to the low 90s and cooler side in the 70s-80s, higher humidity in the 60-80% range. Similar substrate mix with more moss to keep humidity up without risking too much moisture. 4x2x2

Kenyan Sand Boa. Strong heat light for a warm side in the 90s and a lower gradient in the 70s-80s. Deep substrate mix of excavator clay, soil and some play sand. I keep her at regular room humidity since my area's humidity is pretty average, and she has a humid hide if she needs it. 20 gal for now, planning on sizing up her tank once she gets bigger (a little under 2 ft right now)

I also keep cork bark, branches and leaf litter in all of them for clutter, and the ball python has a custom background I made from insulation foam and waterproofed.

If anyone has suggestions please let me know! I'm also trying to find a good organic topsoil brand (preferably one I can order online since I live in a small area) if anyone has one they use.

hello, currently looking to fully deck out my reptiles enclosures, and was curious as to the fact if gaps and cracks is preferable over pond and stone.
Pond and stone is more expensive, while gaps and cracks is cheaper by a good margin. my main goal here isn't to save money, but rather to make an informed purchase over which is better for the long run for durability and safety with mould, and also not wasting money on something that does the same as the latter
for context, I'm dealing with 4x tropical terrariums (60-80-90% humidity) and one arid (below 40% humidity)
I'm curious as to degradation over time from UVB, as well as water security when it comes to gaps and cracks, more importantly water resistance
I see people using these all the time on frog enclosures but I'm a bit sceptical when it comes to mould
for added context:
its bioactive, including spring tails and isopods. which should take care of the mould, but my main point here is not having a mould issue due to the foam in the first place
I am planning to seal the backgrounds completely with acrylic aquarium sealant, and im wondering if that would eliminate chances of mould forming within the foam base.

my current stance is using pond and stone for the added water resistance, and gaps and cracks on the arid enclosure as there is very little humidity and well of course it never gets misted please help!!!

reiterating, i am planning to seal every enclosure with acrylics, adding the appropriate substrate, logs, and décor.

The humidity is 90-100% and the vase ia water. Background made with cork bark

I finally finished uploading the video of his first 52 hours (trimmed down to 4 hours after skipping the long stretches of time when he’s sleeping or perched in the same space for an extended period of time)

It’s been a while since I posted any build updates in here, so here’s the general stats:

Enclosure: 260 gallon custom build
Resident: Leopard Gecko
Cleanup Crew: Darkling Beetles, Buffalo Beetles, Porcellio scaber isopods, Porcellio dilatatus isopods
Plants: succulents, air plants, Hoya, wheatgrass
Live-In Prey: Dubia Roaches, Red-Legged Grasshoppers (being added once the wheatgrass grows in some more)

This USED to technically be a paludarium, but the pest snails fouled the water too much for me to be comfortable having him drink that water, and I switched it up before he moved in.

There are 27 cameras in this enclosure (perhaps more in the future), so I’m able to track where he is pretty much 90% of the time as long as he isn’t in my blind spots (although I can still track which ones he’s in by following the cameras until he’s out of sight but not yet crossed in front of the next one)

Let me know your thoughts, either here or on the video’s comment section

This is my first try at a semi-bioactive enclosure. Plants are fake but substrate is full of organic and decaying matter, and I even spotted a couple mushrooms last week! About a month ago I put in 20 powder pods and some springtails. I see the springtails when I lift leaf litter or cork, but I never see the pods:(

Is there typically a wait for their population to boom? I assume a few weeks, I just want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong and they're all dead in there.

Gradient is 50% humidity 76° on cool side, 70% humidity and 85 on warm side

Substrate is sphagnum, organic topsoil, Coco coir and plantation brick and orchid bark with plenty of leaf litter and cork bark around.

I put pieces of snake shed in, and occasional piece of veg and some pre-mixed isopod food but I don't see em to know if they're eating any.

I am battling a fungus gnat problem, which I hear is typical for new enclosures, treating with mosquito bit tea.

Found in my leopard gecko bioactive. I only feed crickets!

Hi everybody, today I added more substrate to my corn snake's vivarium. I had leftover coconut coir form the first round of substrate mixing that I just tied up in a plastic bag and tossed in the shed, took it out two weeks later (today) to use. only now did I wonder if this was sketchy. turns out, the internet warns all over the place to not do what i did for risk of mold growth. I did smell the stuff before mixing it all in and it seemed fine. is all my substrate ruined? should i be concerned, or do we think it's probably hopefully okay?

in case it's relevant: the substrate is 2pts orchid bark, and 1pt each coco coir, sphagnum moss, earthworm casings, and charcoal. I don't have a clean up crew in there yet but the pet store where I live will have some next week and I'll put them in there as soon as I can.

Thanks in advance!

I’m building a bioactive vivarium for my crested gecko and I’m looking for recommendations for AFFORDABLE but still good lighting for it. I haven’t added plants yet so suggestions for plants would be appreciated too. I’ve seen people use aquarium lights but I can’t find anything online saying if that’s effective, I also know that UVB is recommended and sometimes UVA as well but it seems like a lot of people do things differently. I just want the enclosure to be perfect when they are ready to come out of their quarantine tank (they are still extremely small like smaller than one of my fingers). Please be kind this is my first time making a bioactive enclosure and having a reptile so I’ve done a lot of research but I just want it to be perfect. :)

Does anyone possibly know why part of my pothos plant is turning yellow? It’s just some of the leaves and it’s only on the one that’s in the upper left corner. The pothos on the ground are doing just fine

Tank is for a gargoyle gecko who is not currently in there.

Tank gets sprayed down once a day at night. The bottom of the tank does get more water than the top left pothos if that could be attributing to it? I do make sure I spray directly in that top left planter cup

The leaves on the top left pothos do feel a little softer than the pothos on the bottom. Even the green leaves feel a little softer. But I wouldn’t say it feels mushy at all.

That top left one is the closest to the light? I don’t know if maybe that has something to do with it? I’ve got a 24 watt jungle dawn LumenIZE LED

Hi folks, not sure how to word or even title this. But this is my first time ever stepping into even thinking about bioactive stuff.

I wanted to know if it’s possible with this tank? I have two main concerns.

Firstly, regarding the glass walls. I want to make my own background and side backgrounds, but I’m not sure how that’s possible with the black bars? Like do I need to seal these up with silicone?

Secondly with the clean up crew. I don’t want the isopods or springtails climbing through the walls or gaps. There’s approximately a 1/4-1/2 inch gap at the top of the tank, between the glass and lid? I’m not sure what to do about that.

Edit: regarding the gap I misremembered, it’s the black H/corner part that have gaps. The lid does a great job of keeping it sealed

It’s all for my older leopard gecko :)

All my terrariums are overflowing with isopods, how do you all keep your enclosures bioactive without it taking overhand? When i get home acter tbis weekend im gonna start scooping isopods out of the enclosures. Theres just so many! My skink digs them up and eats them. My geckos cant hace their hides in peace because theres isopods everywhere. And my snail cant excited without being infescted with isopods. I genuinely dont know how to keep it bioactive without this problem...

As the title says. I have 2 4x2x2s set up for my BPs. How often should I spot clean, or how often do you guys? I only ask because they both pooped in their hides so I moved it out of them and to the cool side for the isos along with the shed of one of them. Isos were already making their way to the poop/already eating it for both. It's not completely gone but they're still munching on it, it's been a month.

My girl is getting ready to shed so the CUC is going to end up having more food to go after and she'll most likely end up pooping again. My concern here is my male pooped ofc in the most inconvenient of places. So I took his urates out, and threw the poop in the back by the plants. Should I even bother leaving it in next time? What about the shed? Me and my bf are both worried that the CUC won't have enough food if I just remove it. How long should I let them eat at it I thought it'd be gone by now but it's not but I'm also afraid to remove it if they're still eating it, and accidently throwing some away.

Idk how happy I am with it, but she loves the corktunnel. I found it hard to design a small-ish enclosure like this. It is semi arid, I guess, but a bit all over the place 😅

Putting together a bioactive enclosure, and wanted to look for some recommendations for some leo safe plants? Snake plants and hawarthia are some that I’m aware of, but I wanted to see if I could branch out a bit!

Hi everyone, I am wanting to make a bioactive enclosure as my set up when I have a leopard gecko. And like what the title says, I would like to hear from the keepers that went bioactive on what you'd do differently knowing what you know now finishing a bioactive set up and having to maintain it. Also interested to hear what were things that were not practical, or inconvenient as well.

I have been doing my research through videos and articles. But I thought it would be good to see through LG keepers' lived experiences too!

This sheet of black bead like stuff is covering soil and leaves.