Quick Bioactive Question

no offense taken, I think i was still a little wrankled by a comment by someone else on another thread and some of that probably came through, it kind of "messed with my zen thing", to borrow a phrase from Tron. it's kind of hard to know what to make of some people's comments when they are obviously quite experienced and adamant about their being only one right way to do something, that I know for a fact many other people do differently and have success with. I guess it's time for me to go burn some incense and do some more yoga, LOL!

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Originally Posted by distaff

I haven't kept either species, but I expect the BRB enclosure would have higher humidity than would be ideal for a BP, and I think that would help break stuff down quickly. My enclosures have just enough moisture to keep the plants going, and while there is compost in the mix, there doesn't seem to be much active composting going on (not like a compost pile or worm bin, anyway). Also, the layers I've used are fairly thin. The leica "false bottom" drainage layer was laid down at 1 1/2 inches, and the growing substrate was originally 3-4 inches, but has since packed down/broken down a bit. (Slither Seeker, I am not trying to cut anyone down if that is how it came across. I just wanted to provide helpful advice based on my own experience. You obviously know what you are doing!)

Smell to me, is the best indicator if spot cleaning is needed. If the viv is stinky, I start searching for the source. If it smells fresh and woodsey, I don't worry about it.

Both of my tanks started with similar materials and plants, but they developed very differently. I think that is part of the fun of them.

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Okay, I've run bioactive for years and I'll address some of the misconceptions here.

Reptile mites will not thrive in an enclosure without a snake, so if for some reason you do get reptile mites, simply move the snake over to a different enclosure and treat, get rid of the mites, then put the snake back in. You're not going to introduce reptile mites by collecting stuff from the woods. However, I still advise a bit of caution because of pesticides and what not.

I get oak leaves from my yard, but I still rinse/soak them to make sure they're clean, then I bake them. I do this because I originally ordered all my microfauna online and have cultures. I breed my own springtails & isopods. If you did have to take your snake out because of mites, you can just make sure the microfauna in the enclosure have stuff to eat. I'm not going to get into too much detail with this though.

Anyways, I run 3-3.5 inches of substrate in my bioactive tanks, I use a mixture of 100% organic garden soil(Lowes), majestic earth 100% organic spaghnum peat moss(Lowes) and quikrete play sand(Lowes). Now with maintaining humidity you don't want to keep the soil soggy, however spraying it will not reach the bottom layers unless you water it and then you can run into more issues. So spraying is fine. However when I'm filling the water bowl in the enclosures, I over fill it and let it run into the bottom of the enclosure. When I used exo-terra tanks I put a layer of rocks in the bottom and this way I let standing water sit on the rock layer as this helps the best with humidity. With my PVC enclosures I don't do this because I can't see the bottom layer. Now this isn't the best way to setup if you're wanting to run live plants. If you want do to that then you need a bit thicker layer, and you can put the clay balls or growstones on the bottom, with that black garden stuff over them, then you can do your substrate.

The snake fecal matter is broken down before I even notice it, so whoever said waiting for poop to be broken down obviously has 0 experience with bioactive. The reason you run isopods & springtails is because each have their own way of cleaning.

Springtails eat rotting, organic matter, decaying matter, mold.

Isopods don't eat mold, they eat rotting/decaying stuff as well. They are more or less your terrestrial bugs.

I mix oak leaves into the substrate as well and even put some on top, so everything has food they can eat.

Neal, it seems like you and a few others have it down-packed. I like that. And, I hope to eventually try it and succeed. It also looks like its harder to accomplish in a PVC enclosure vs say a glass or exo-terra tank. All interesting. Can't wait to start playing with this stuff.

Neal, excellent post! I hope to see more folks "come out of the closet" and share their experience on this matter with us!

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Originally Posted by CharlesMTF

Neal, it seems like you and a few others have it down-packed. I like that. And, I hope to eventually try it and succeed. It also looks like its harder to accomplish in a PVC enclosure vs say a glass or exo-terra tank. All interesting. Can't wait to start playing with this stuff.

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Not so much harder to accomplish, but you can't see beneath the top level so it's hard to gauge how damp it is under there or if you need to get water there. There are other variations I've done for species requiring higher humidity. In one PVC, I've ran rocks at the bottom, then on the side I let the substrate go down so I can see the rocks. This allows me to see if there is water on the false layer

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Originally Posted by CharlesMTF

Neal, it seems like you and a few others have it down-packed. I like that. And, I hope to eventually try it and succeed. It also looks like its harder to accomplish in a PVC enclosure vs say a glass or exo-terra tank. All interesting. Can't wait to start playing with this stuff.

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Its not the enclosure material that makes it difficult, it is how deep the enclosure allows you to go for substrate. Most front opening PVC enclosures do not allow for a deep enough substrate layer to make it bio-active. On my PVC enclosures I had to make a barrier so that I could get a deep enough substrate going. It can be done in any enclosure. My skinks and beardie are in PVC, Tegu is in a home made wooden cage lined with PVC, snake is in a glass tank and the frogs are in a glass tank, all on Bio-active...


Here is a link to a Bio-Active thread we started a while back, it lost traction, but it has some good info and pointers in it:
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...oil-Guide-Tips