I personally use bioactive substrate. It's the best thing I've found as far as price, maintenance, and efficiency. It's simply top soil without any additives and leaf litter for your clean up crew.

Put in about 5-6" of top soil for any live plants. Leaf litter from outside. Add a bunch of spring tails and sew bugs and there's virtually no maintenance needed. The bugs are there to clean up any poo. The plants are to keep the air fresh and not stagnate. I've also added earthworms to help aerate the soil.

I've put in a shop light fixture and put a UVB in it simply for the plants.


The combination of the shop light fixture heat and my UTH pad keeps the ambient temperatures spot on almost through out the year and I never have to pay for substrate again.


Also, the tank I use is 5' long and roughly 2' wide.