Can Bioactive Setups be Successful with Fake Plants?

[Malum Argenteum]

I'm actually not having any problems with mold or fungus haha!

I should also mention I like bioactive setups for the fact that you apparently don't have to change out the substrate but once every year-to-a few years. But I suppose that might not be the case, if you're reporting fungus growth in yours?

I don't really need to go bioactive, I just think it would be cool, and I would save some money on substrate (supposedly!)

The way dart frogs are kept (which other circles have imported as "Bioactive", often nonsensically and sometimes to the detriment of the species being kept) is primarily (a) to provide a supplementary food source for the frogs, some species of which forage pretty frequently, and (b) to eliminate substrate changes. On that last part, this is because many dart species don't tolerate major cleanings; they're 3/4" animals that travel about Mach 4 when startled, and they lay eggs in the top substrate layer (leaf litter). Major viv upheavals like swapping out substrate can and does kill frogs/tads/eggs. It isn't because it is simpler -- much to the contrary, if there were a simpler way than "bioactive" to get the same results a keeper would be crazy not to use it. The substrates we use (not sure about stuff that the BioDude peddles; I would be somewhat skeptical) last from ten years to forever.

Fungus growth in a dart frog enclosure doesn't indicate the need for a substrate swap (that wouldn't reduce the fungus anyway; fungus grows where it is happy, including on new damp substrate) since the fungus growth isn't due to excess waste build up, but is rather part of the bioactive process. There are literally a couple grams of animal in each cubic foot of enclosure, and the enclosure is flushed daily with copious amounts of water that leave through a bulkhead drain carrying away dissolved waste. Note that in these enclosures the plant growth is a part of the waste processing cycle. The microfauna do process some of the waste, although it is understood that much of what they eat is the fungal growth that occurs on animal waste and other decomposing material.

This is quite different from a typical ball python enclosure, which has at least a hundred times the animal mass per cubic foot of an animal that defecates infrequently but generously, and the enclosure isn't flushed with water. This would make the waste production very unlikely to be processed at all efficiently (isopods need many months to ramp up populations) and in such an enclosure substrate replacement would be necessary whether there were microfauna present or not.

At any rate, there isn't anything special about "bioactive" substrate if a person just wants some isopods and springtails. They'll live in a range of damp substrates, more damp than I keep my ball. Whether the ones they prefer would be ideal for a ball python is a different question. I keep some in gecko vivs that use Jungle Mix and some leaf litter, and they seem to do OK until they get eaten.

Keep in mind that isopods cannot legally or with any degree of environmental responsibility be released anywhere in the US without a permit (which USDA is unlikely to issue; isopods are invasive), so using them complicates substrate disposal (you can't compost it, for example). Freezing or fully drying the substrate, then double bagging and putting in the trash, is generally thought acceptable.