# Colubrids > Hognose >  BioDude/Bioactive?

## GpBp

Hi! _ (Before you climb all over me about my Geno situation, he's doing a lot better! He's in shed right now, and I'm so mad at myself, but I'm getting the feeling it was just a hiss. I'm still watching him very closely, and keeping his temps and humidity up, but he seems 99x better!)_ I just have a question, I saw this guy, goes by the BioDude? He seems to have a good price and everything and it seems like it'd be a great idea if I was to do a bioactive set-up. Any experience with hogs in bioactive? Pros/Cons? Has anyone purchased stuff from the BioDude? Thank you! There are a lot of different opinions out there on bioactive setups, I'd like to hear yours!   :Snake:  :Very Happy:

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## GpBp

https://www.thebiodude.com/collectio...-bioactive-kit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or98QQx3W8U

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## Jhill001

I've used his soil and I love it. Plants are in real good condition too. I would get springtails and isopods elsewhere for the time being till his shipping prices come down however. 30 dollars to ship bugs is a bit much when others are doing it for like 7 dollars. I can't speak to his other products but I'll be grabbing one of those grow lights soon, however I can speak to his good customer service overall. A lot of people are obsessed with sterility in their cages and quite frankly it's just not attainable and really only offers benefits in quarantine situations. My bioactive setup has been quite rewarding (mostly trying to prevent my rat snake from trampling plants and such). The snake seems to love the soil which holds burrows better than anything I've ever used. 

Hope this helps.

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_GpBp_ (11-15-2017)

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## Starscream

One of the things he likes to promote for ball pythons is no drainage layer, which kind of drives me crazy. You NEED a drainage layer, especially if you plan on having plants, because you don't want to over-water the enclosure and then your soil smell all nasty. Otherwise his stuff is sound. Somewhat over-priced, in my opinion, both with bugs and just the substrate mixes themselves . If you know how to do it right you can mix your own stuff for a lot cheaper, but his substrate mixes work fine if you don't know how or don't want to go through the trouble.

As for leaf litter you can collect that from outside, so long as it's 50 feet away from a road lol.

In general you just have to remember that with bioactive, the husbandry needs of the animal don't change. Still same temperatures, still same humidity ranges, just different style of setup.

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_GpBp_ (11-15-2017)

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## Regius_049

> I just have a question, I saw this guy, goes by the BioDude? He seems to have a good price and everything and it seems like it'd be a great idea if I was to do a bioactive set-up. Any experience with hogs in bioactive? Pros/Cons? Has anyone purchased stuff from the BioDude? Thank you! There are a lot of different opinions out there on bioactive setups, I'd like to hear yours!


I generally encourage people to move towards bioactive enclosures if they can.  I have all my geckos/frogs in bioactive setups, but have only recently started to move the snakes over.  In regards to your first question, I think a hognose snake would be a good candidate for a bioactive setup seeing as they already like to burrow, but it would require some careful attention to a few details.  Hognose snakes are pretty temperate species and you wouldn't need to go too heavy on the watering/misting, but some is required for microfauna (sprintails and ispods) to flourish.  However your snake will destroy your plants.  A hognose is fairly small, which is pretty helpful, but they also burrow so you'd likely need to put any plants in clay pots buried in substrate.

I have no experience with biodude as I (more or less) exclusively use NEherp and glass box tropicals for my vivarium needs except for a few miscellaneous materials.  People I have heard from seem to be pleased with his product and indeed I have considered it before, particularly his terra firma/sahara.  However two things turned me off from using him:

1.  As others have noted, his prices are pretty high.  I think there are better deals to be had elsewhere and mixing your own substrate is definitely cheaper.
2.  The owner, Josh Halter, used to be associated with a company called "Genesis Exotics" if I remember correctly, and it had pretty poor reviews.  I don't know if it dissolved because his partner(s) were shady and the source of the bad reviews or what, but it turned me off from giving them a go. 

In regards to drainage layer, you _can_ get away without one if you are very careful with watering, but I would not recommend it.  For a burrowing species like a hognose, I would do egg crate with a thick screen firmly attached to it.  You want the animal to stop when it hits the drainage layer and not mix things around or shift your screen separator.

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_GpBp_ (11-17-2017)

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## GpBp

> I generally encourage people to move towards bioactive enclosures if they can. I have all my geckos/frogs in bioactive setups, but have only recently started to move the snakes over. In regards to your first question, I think a hognose snake would be a good candidate for a bioactive setup seeing as they already like to burrow, but it would require some careful attention to a few details. Hognose snakes are pretty temperate species and you wouldn't need to go too heavy on the watering/misting, but some is required for microfauna (sprintails and ispods) to flourish. However your snake will destroy your plants. A hognose is fairly small, which is pretty helpful, but they also burrow so you'd likely need to put any plants in clay pots buried in substrate.
> 
> I have no experience with biodude as I (more or less) exclusively use NEherp and glass box tropicals for my vivarium needs except for a few miscellaneous materials. People I have heard from seem to be pleased with his product and indeed I have considered it before, particularly his terra firma/sahara. However two things turned me off from using him:
> 
> 1. As others have noted, his prices are pretty high. I think there are better deals to be had elsewhere and mixing your own substrate is definitely cheaper.
> 2. The owner, Josh Halter, used to be associated with a company called "Genesis Exotics" if I remember correctly, and it had pretty poor reviews. I don't know if it dissolved because his partner(s) were shady and the source of the bad reviews or what, but it turned me off from giving them a go. 
> 
> In regards to drainage layer, you _can_ get away without one if you are very careful with watering, but I would not recommend it. For a burrowing species like a hognose, I would do egg crate with a thick screen firmly attached to it. You want the animal to stop when it hits the drainage layer and not mix things around or shift your screen separator.


Thank you so much, very helpful! I checked out the websites, and I can very well look it up, but if anyone could give me the basics of what I need so I could price everything? Looking at those, the BioDudes stuff seems a lot more expensive. Thank you!

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## GpBp

I'm at my local pet shop right now, and how about zoo meds Reptisoil? They have a 10 qt bag for $12 which seems nice, and the bag says its good with burrowing, plant growth, and retaining humidity?

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## Regius_049

> Thank you so much, very helpful! I checked out the  websites, and I can very well look it up, but if anyone could give me  the basics of what I need so I could price everything? Looking at those,  the BioDudes stuff seems a lot more expensive. Thank you!


You will need the following:

1.  Egg crate for bottom: Option #1, Option #2

2.  Screen to attach to egg crate: Several places carry this, Home Depot is perhaps easiest

3.  Microfauna: Springtails and Isopods (those links are NEherp), other sources: biodude, glass box tropicals, Roach crossing

4.  Leaf litter: Can be collected yourslf, though sterilization is reccmended.  Sources: NEherp, Glass box tropicals, Black Panther Zoological 

5.  Soil: You can go a few ways with this one.  You can mix your own (usually a trip to home depot) or you can buy something commercially.  The eastern hognose is a pretty temperate species, so I might go with a light soil / sand mixture.  Maybe 25% sand to 75% "soil".  

For the soil: There is, of course, biodude's terra firma, which may just be easier to deal with as it is a single package. Personally, I like to kind of layer mine so I have the more moist soil on the bottom and the drier soil on the top.  I use NEherps soils, so if I were going to do hognose, I would buy their ABG mix (1-2 bags for the bottom area) and then do a mix of NEherp V2 soil, peat / fir bark blend, and sand.  The V2 soil adds some coconut coir and spagnum into the mix to give you moisture pockets and a more neutral pH value and offset the slight acidicity of the peat.

I like to use either reptisand or jurassic sand as it is more natural and has lower dust, but you can probably use whatever.  Most people seem to just pick stuff up from home depot and call it a day.  It is also far less expensive and you get a lot more of it, but I figure there is enough here to give you the gist.  

For setup: 

Basically just attach the screen to the egg crate using either silicone or zip ties (there are many youtube videos about it) and place it in the bottom.  Then spread your soil and add in your isopodsa and springtails.  Water everything down then put the leaf litter on top.  Some people like to give it 3-4 weeks to "settle" as generally what will happen is in a week or so, mold will start to grow (usually fuzzy white mold) and then the microfauna will populate and eat it up as everything stabilizes.




> I'm at my local pet shop right now, and how about zoo meds Reptisoil? They have a 10 qt bag for $12 which seems nice, and the bag says its good with burrowing, plant growth, and retaining humidity?
> 
> Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk


This soil is pretty much the zoomed equivalent to ABG mix + sand, which would actually be pretty great as a substrate.  However, I remember almost purchasing that myself, but found several negative reviews by people saying they had found mites in their reptisoil.  While these are not the same mites as snake mites, it gave me pause and I went a different route.  I should note that some people appear to love it.  The mixture itself appears to consist of: peat, topsoil, sand, and charcoal (carbon).  At face value, this is by no means a bad mix, but I have my suspicians that the topsoil they use is not well sanitized as other products from zoo med do not appear to have this issue. 

If you wanted to use this, it would work pretty well I suspect, but I might bake it first.

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_GpBp_ (11-18-2017),savora (11-26-2017)

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## GpBp

Sorry for the late reply! Thank you SO SO much!  Unfortunately, though, bioactive might not be for me right now  :Sad:  I have read your replys and looked into it completely, but I just don't think I'm ready to take it on right now. It's not really the cost, because it was actually surprisingly cheap! But I really do hope to look into it someday. Thank you so much! 

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