Snakes and Bioactive Enclosures

just wanted to see a) how many people here are into this and b) what are some of the things you do - i haven’t got to far into this yet with my snakes but previously my entire arachnid collection is bioactive - my main thing is how do people find a balance between maintaining bio-activity and maintaining terrarium up keep? also what plants do you use? am trying to get ideas for sturdy plants that could with stand giant shenanigans - arachnids don’t really generate waste so it wasn’t much of an issue but as i’m sure everyone here is aware, big snakes can leave human sized craps and piss like nobodies business so it seems much different lol

so far what i’ve done is bifurcated the substrate into 2 layers - the base substrate layer and what i call the waste substrate layer to accommodate the removal of substrate following bio-waste removal/spot cleaning - i think my thing is how to maintain good bio-activity and soil culture in the midst of needed soil changing/removal because the beauty of bioactive enclosures in arachnid enclosures is that it ages like a fine wine and truly becomes “alive” but this sort of thing seems difficult if i have to throw out some or all of the soil all of them time

I think you have to go big. The larger the enclosure the smaller percentage of the substrate you'll have to remove after your snake eliminates. The more substrate that's left undisturbed the better the chances are that your habitat will recover. A large enclosure will also be good for your plants too. The more unplanted area the less time your snake spends crawling across your plants.

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Originally Posted by Homebody

I think you have to go big. The larger the enclosure the smaller percentage of the substrate you'll have to remove after your snake eliminates. The more substrate that's left undisturbed the better the chances are that your habitat will recover. A large enclosure will also be good for your plants too. The more unplanted area the less time your snake spends crawling across your plants.

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this makes a lot of sense - the majority of my collection will be in 8x2x2 and 8x4x4 enclosures, with a couple of 6x2x2 for my smaller species - i was thinking too of maybe shielding the plants with climbing perches/branches? that way they might opt for that over the plants or be less likely to get into the plants

I’ve just been kind of researching and tinkering while they’re in their baby/juvie enclosures

I really enjoyed watching this video. It's not bioactive but it is big.