Low maintenance tank decor suggestions

[Malum Argenteum]

Although I had assumed a bioactive setup would be less sanitary, it is interesting to hear that there’s speculation that it might provide some benefits

If you're referring to the comment that I made, that was about 'naturalistic' enclosures, not so-called "bioactive" ones, and wasn't about the setup itself but rather the snakes' rate/risk of shedding pathogens.

The specific passage from the paper is "The differences noted in detection rates between wild reptiles and reptiles in captivity could—as mentioned above—also be due to differences in conditions, with dietary, stress and crowding-related factors likely causing the higher detection rates found in reptiles in captivity. Given the high dependency of ectothermic organisms on their environment, and natural living situations probably reflecting more physiological conditions than those in captivity, this could contribute to a stronger immune system and reduced stress."

Taking a look at the citations, all of them are about either or both (a) the differences in Salmonella detection rates between wild and captive reptiles, and (b) the differences in Salmonella detection rates between baseline and artificially stressed animals.

It looks like I may have extrapolated a bit between 'natural living situations' and 'naturalistic husbandry', since I saw the comments about stress and automatically made the connection. I'd still stand behind my interpretation, but would note that there's a little bit of explaining needed to establish that reptiles kept in naturalistic enclosures have lower levels of stress (I think that case could be made, and there are some studies that support the case). I do not think that most reptiles kept in "bioactive" enclosures would be expected to have lower stress levels than those kept in naturalistic enclosures.