BioDude/Bioactive?

[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?

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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.