Setting up my Naturalistic Vivarium

Keeping reptiles has been a hobby of mine for about 5 years in total. Much like other hobbies that I am involved in or have been involved in I dont like to settle for the bare basics. I like to go above and beyond what I see as "status quo" and create something that truly exudes creativity. I tried using packaged substrates from the pet store however it became troublesome and a little costly to change them out every month. Following that I tried switching to Repti-Carpet and had success, however it didnt do much to fulfill my creative side. I had always been curious about using live pants in my snake enclosures however I wasnt sure how it would work with changing out substrate every month. It wasnt until I stumbled across a book called "Natural Terrariums" by Philip Purser at my local library. Inside the book I saw the basis for a Bioactive Substrate System (more on that later) suggested. The idea behind a Bioactive Substrate System (or BSS) is basically that by formulating a substrate with specific properties and mixing in the urinary waste (remove any solid waste) of pets beneficial bacteria will grow within the lower portion of the substrate to a point in which simply mixing the top layer of substrate into the lower layer will allow the beneficial bacteria to break down the nitrates found in the urine and turn it into food your plants. It in essence eliminates the need for changing out substrate every month. From everything I have read the substrate should last at least 6 months and as long as 3 years. After reading this I began to heavily research this subject on various online forums until I got here. After posting a question on BP.net forums I got a suggestion from KiteDemon to read a book called "The Art of Keeping Snakes" by Philippe De Vosjoli. This is a GREAT read for any snake owner and especially for anyone wanting to create a naturalistic setup, I highly recommend it. In the book he goes into great detail what components should be included in the substrate in order to stimulate bacterial growth. Following reading that book I was able to formulate a game plan of what I needed to setup a 75 gallon tank for my ball python. 1 year, 1 test tank and a lot of other supplies later I was now ready to finally setup my naturalistic vivarium. So without further adieu here it is.


What you'll need

-Lava Rock
-Play or fine grade sand
-Organic Pete Moss
-Bentonite Clay or Fullers Earth (found in cheap organic cat litter)
-Coconut Coir
-Cypress mulch or Orchid Bark
-Organic Fertilizer
-Plant grow light

Step 1. The Drainage Layer
-The first step is to put down a drainage layer, about 1-2 inches, composed of the Lava Rock which is then cover by a screen or mesh material to keep the substrate from mixing with it. The purpose is to allow for an area for water to reside in which the plants roots cannot reach. If water is allowed to sit around the plant roots it can cause the roots to rot and the plants to die. It also gives a place to water the substrate. I placed a 6 inch tube through the substrate to the drainage layer and water directly into the drainage layer. This allows for helps to maintain a moist lower level (beneficial for bacterial growth) and a dryer top level and helps prevent mold.

Drainage Layer with nylon mesh to separate layers
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...inagelayer.jpg


Step 2. The Substrate
-The actual substrate itself has multiple components each with a purpose. For the base of the substrate I used 2 parts Coconut Coir (it provides a nice aerated base substrate for the plants) and about 1 part Pete Moss (which holds moisture well and is naturally biologically active). The additions to the substrate include about 1.5 parts cypress mulch (helps aerate soil and provides surface area for bacterial growth), 1/2 part play sand (also aerate soil and provides surface area for bacterial growth), 1/3 part fullers earth (helps absorb urine, odor and again provides surface area for bacterial growth), and an appropriate amount of general purpose Organic Fertilizer (naturally these will help stimulate root growth and provide food for plants). Make sure to make enough for at least 3-4 inches of substrate. Any less can cause the substrate to dry out and result in no bacterial growth. Also, if you look in the corner of the tank in the picture you can see my water tube used for watering directly to the drainage layer.

Mixed substrate in the tank
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...30/th_tank.jpg

Step 3. Landscaping
-This is the fun part. Actually designing your landscape and putting your plants, hides, etc in place is an almost never ending quest to find something better (for me at least). A good example of this is that I have had my tank setup for almost a month and I already am considering replacing some of the plants and one of my hides. When choosing the plants you are going to use it is important to do some research as to what plants do well with herps, in certain climates and under certain lighting. The plants I chose are Sansevieria, Ficus Benjamina, Ponytail Palm and Hoya Carnosa. The two books I mentioned above have good sections on the type of plants that are good to use in vivaria and here is a link to a reptile channel article which lists a few as well as some of the advantages of using live plants in your herp enclosures:

http://www.reptilechannel.com/kid-co...mphibians.aspx

My setup
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...nishedtank.jpghttp://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...ishedtank3.jpghttp://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...sheilatank.jpg

*One last thing I forgot to mention is that if you are using real plants you will need to purchase a plant grown light. I bought mine online for less than $20 after shipping so they arent that pricey.

So there you have it. Everything I went through to create my naturalistic terrarium. It is a bit of challenge getting it setup but afterwards it is very rewarding and suprisingly simple to maintain. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please leave them in the comments below.

Here are the books I used
http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...pingsnakes.jpghttp://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...terrariums.jpg

How do you keep a hot spot with such a thick layer of substrate?

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

How do you keep a hot spot with such a thick layer of substrate?

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Im still perfecting that. However, I have set up a basking sight with a heat lamp. I also have dug out the substrate under the hide on the hot side making it shallower and warmer towards the bottom. Typically throughout the day I have observed my substrate to maintain a temperature of about 80 degrees with an ambient temp in the mid 80's. I havent checked how hot the basking sight is but if it is 85 degrees 12" from the basking spot I imagine the basking spot is at least 90 degrees.

I too was wondering how you heated it. Are you using heat lamps or something?

The tank looks very nice though. Good job with it.

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Originally Posted by alittleFREE

I too was wondering how you heated it. Are you using heat lamps or something?

The tank looks very nice though. Good job with it.

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Yes, and a UTH for now. Im considering switching to heat tape around the outside in the future but the problem with that is risking getting the substrate to hot and drying it out.

Oh wow! I just realized that clicking on the thumbnails sends you to photobucket. Disregard the background and username, I dont have a PB profile so I used my sisters. Im embarrassed :redface:

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Originally Posted by Danman88

Oh wow! I just realized that clicking on the thumbnails sends you to photobucket. Disregard the background and username, I dont have a PB profile so I used my sisters. Im embarrassed :redface:

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Nothing wrong with being an emo pirate lol

Pretty sweet man... So with this setup, all you'll pretty ever have to do is spot clean, or will the natural system break down the poop?

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Originally Posted by that_dc5

Pretty sweet man... So with this setup, all you'll pretty ever have to do is spot clean, or will the natural system break down the poop?

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Yes, spot clean and once a week stir in the urine. In "The Art of Keeping Snakes" the author suggests that stirring in soft poop from smaller snakes could work and that he has had some success doing so with his water snakes. I have also read from others on Gecko forums that it is possible to stir in poop when keeping Geckos as long as you have a "cleaning crew". A cleaning crew consists of springtails, isopods and sometimes earthworms. The cleaning crew will break down the poop to a state more manageable for the natural bacteria to break at a rate that can keep up with the animals.

Very interesting. I wonder if you could disguise a RHP somewhere in there for a heating unit, maybe not buried directly in the substrate but in a hidden housing or mounted to a side with a t-stat.

im looking into building a vivarium too. just have a question for you, or anyone else really.

with adding a springtail culture or any other cleaning crew member, how do you keep the colony under control? im thinking of housing a green tree python in it, but i'm just worried about the cleaning crew becoming to massive since there wont be a frog or lizard in there to help control population. am i just over thinking this?

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Originally Posted by lpnaz480

im looking into building a vivarium too. just have a question for you, or anyone else really.

with adding a springtail culture or any other cleaning crew member, how do you keep the colony under control? im thinking of housing a green tree python in it, but i'm just worried about the cleaning crew becoming to massive since there wont be a frog or lizard in there to help control population. am i just over thinking this?

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I had the same question when I was looking into this. My answer would be that you don't need one. The only reason you would need a cleaning crew is if you plan on stirring in the snakes poop as well as urine. I'm not sure how it would work out, whether they would over populate due to the lack of predators or die off due to the infrequency of defecation a snake. One way of avoiding this is to scoop out all the poop and allow the benificial bacteria break down the urine.

oh that will make it much easier. i was planning to spot clean the fecal matter and leave urine and stir it into the dirt, like you. just didnt know if my ph levels in the substrate would be strong enough to break it down without a cleaning crew. so i started looking up spring tails and isopods which my wife would probably hate in the house. i'm thinking if they are needed, a cleaning crew that is, maybe red worms wouldnt be that bad

Okay so I'm new to all of this, so new that I don't even have my BP yet just still doing research. I was considering doing a natural vivarium as well but I know that BPs are heavy bodied snakes and would probably crush any live plants placed in their enclosures. I for one would really hate to spend all that time setting up such a beautifully landscaped vivarium only to have in crushed by a roaming snake. So I'm curious what your experience has been with this particular issue?

Cheers,

Matt

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

How do you keep a hot spot with such a thick layer of substrate?

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With substrate that thick it actually holds the heat really well. I did a similar set up for a kingsnake a couple years ago, using a heat lamp on a timer for a hotspot (was going for a natural setup, heat lamp seemed much more natural to me than a heat pad) and while the rest of the house would drop down into the 60's during the day the tank never dropped below 75 or so. Was definitely cool to see the snake acting more natural with burrowing through the dirt, hiding, and basking at different points in the day. I also used earthworms in my setup to help keep the soil aerated, and it was always cool to see the tunnels they had burrowed against the glass in the mornings. I'd definitely recommend this for anyone who wants to set up a nice display enclosure!

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Originally Posted by mgodwin3568

Okay so I'm new to all of this, so new that I don't even have my BP yet just still doing research. I was considering doing a natural vivarium as well but I know that BPs are heavy bodied snakes and would probably crush any live plants placed in their enclosures. I for one would really hate to spend all that time setting up such a beautifully landscaped vivarium only to have in crushed by a roaming snake. So I'm curious what your experience has been with this particular issue?

Cheers,

Matt

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I actually have had very few problems with this. In the beginning she did break one of the leaves of the Sansevieria, but it didnt break completely and the plant has done great ever since. She has also broken off a few new sprouts on my Hoya. The thicker more mature leaves have done fine so I plan on using some sort of plastic container with some holes to cover up the plant at night while my snake is active at least until the new sprouts can grow in. As far as choosing plants I would stick to heartier shrub or tree like plants. My Ficus has done well and my Sansevieria has done awesome. As long as you purchase them at a size in which the snake can't do any major damage to them they should be fine. Another plant I plan on trying in the near future is a Dracaena Marginata. When smaller it is a grass like shrub plant that should give a good effect in simulating the central African grasslands look.

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Was definitely cool to see the snake acting more natural with burrowing through the dirt, hiding, and basking at different points in the day. I also used earthworms in my setup to help keep the soil aerated, and it was always cool to see the tunnels they had burrowed against the glass in the mornings. I'd definitely recommend this for anyone who wants to set up a nice display enclosure!

-m00kfu

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I definetly agree with this. It has been really cool to see how my snakes behavior has changed. Her habits such as basking times, when she comes out at night, etc. have become much more patterned and natural. Your also right, when it comes to aesthetic appeal the naturalistic vivarium is hard to beat.

I've had friends whom have a set of very large Bio active systems. They use an equivalent to rhp for heat. (very large 12foot square and 6 tall) it is actually a radiant heat system for homes. I would think that with a water sublayer a uth would not be adequate. It might be possible to have dual sublayers one that is just regular and one side with a heated circulation system. This should allow heat to penatrate the soil layers above it. Just thinking out side the box. A aquarium heater in a circulation box might work really well . Although re-inventing the wheel might not be the most sensible way to proceed. RHP s are safe and efficient and a good solution.


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Originally Posted by kitedemon

I've had friends whom have a set of very large Bio active systems. They use an equivalent to rhp for heat. (very large 12foot square and 6 tall) it is actually a radiant heat system for homes. I would think that with a water sublayer a uth would not be adequate. It might be possible to have dual sublayers one that is just regular and one side with a heated circulation system. This should allow heat to penatrate the soil layers above it. Just thinking out side the box. A aquarium heater in a circulation box might work really well . Although re-inventing the wheel might not be the most sensible way to proceed. RHP s are safe and efficient and a good solution.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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You are right about the UTH as being an inadequate heat source. However I do use one to help maintain adequate soil temperatures for the benificial bacteria to multiply. It isn't a huge necessity but it does help. Another thing it helps with is evaporating the water trapped in the drainage layer up into the soil. Again, I could get by without it but I have observed that it does help.

When you describe your friends large room sized setup, which is awesome BTW, what do you meen by RHP?

http://www.reptilebasics.com/80-watt-radiant-heat-panel

Radient heat panel. The panel mounts to the ceiling it radiates heat down. It might be worth both I am not 100% sure there is no exact formula every set up is different there is not right just different.

Its now been about 6 months since I posted this and I just wanted to post a few updated pictures of how everything has grown in and a few additions I have made. As i posted earlier I have had one plant that has had problems, but aside from that I have had no plant problems. As for the soil itself I haven't had any problems there either. Given the fact that my snake has been living on/urinating in the soil for 6 months and there is no scent coming from it other then a rich earthy smell, as well as the fact that it has a smooth, silky feel to it (as opposed to sticky-ish) I can say with certainty that it is biologically active. However, it has become a little compressed. An addition of a little new soil wouldn't hurt.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...r88/tank13.jpg
http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...r88/tank12.jpg
http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...r88/tank11.jpg


P.S.- I wanted to actually edit this into the original post but couldn't figure out how to do it. Any suggestion would be great.
-Thanks

That looks quite wonderful! Good work! Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much for sharing your BSS "journey". I'm currently reading The Art of Keeping Snakes and was looking for a more detailed "recipe" (if you will) of substrate material proportions for our ball python. I CANNOT wait to transition him over. Did you mix up your substrate and introduce it to the enclosure immediately or did you let it sit for a while???

No I let it sit for quite a while 4 months the system sometimes crashes and you need to let the plants get established


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cool and all, but if you really want a naturalistic looking setup, ditch the cheap plastic water bowl and go get a large one at petsmart for $15. I love how creative you got with the organic substrate though and also the rest of the cage.

why do you water in the drainage layer? wouldnt that cause bacteria? also wouldnt regular misting allow water to fall in the drainage layer? im new this and building my own viv. Just curious if bacteria was an issue or if I should b worried about it?? thanks

The system is bio active it requires the bacteria. Often it is started with really well balanced aquarium water and or filter medium. The key is allowing bacteria that break down wastes and preventing harmful bacteria.


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is this possible to create without the cleaning crew?

If you mean insects no you don't need them. But you still must have 'good' bacteria cultures. The system must be balanced or you will be cleaning it out completely every month. As it takes time to establish plants this defeats the whole set up. It is very similar to closed system tanks where the tank grows food for the fish it holds. The fish then feed the plants and feeding externally is not very common.

Properly set up will run with out anything more than plant care (pruning and rare fertilizing) and removing solid wastes with occasional stirring the soil. Friends have a huge royal enclosure that has not had a substrate change in years it smells like outside fresh plant and very slightly earthy. There should never be any smell that is unpleasant.


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