I've read this, and wanted an excuse to check the math.Originally Posted by Bogertophis
My most heavily stocked frog enclosure (2.5 sq ft footprint) has about ten frogs that each weigh under a gram, so say ten grams of bioload on the high end. They have a much higher metabolism than BPs -- a couple times more, maybe, but let's say 5x more to be really sure we're not overstating things, so 50g of BP equivalent bioload. That's 20g BP equivalent bioload per sq foot of enclosure.
Keep in mind that dart frog enclosures are run pretty humid and wet (so process waste pretty quickly; waste gets consumed by fungus, which gets consumed by springtails and isopods) and also have drains so that final waste products (dissolved organics and minerals) are flushed out in the water that runs through the substrate (maybe a couple cups a week in that size enclosure). A BP "bioactive" wouldn't have a drain, since moving enough water through to saturate and then flow through the substrate would not be conductive to the sort of moisture levels a BP requires. So any calculations are going to be very conservative -- likely a BP would need more square footage than this calculation shows to process waste similarly.
Now say an adult BP is 2500g. At 20g per sq foot, that's 125 sq feet -- a smallish bedroom. Makes substrate cleaning seem like a pretty simple task.
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