our bioactive reptiles

Reptile keepers tend to be very picky of appearances(such as just not keeping the hard water spots off the glass), slow to accept new things like methods of bioactive keeping, and don't really find random posts about daily activity or especially personal thoughts of reptiles that interesting so I find the forums and groups rather boring or limited unless I have a specific question. For that reason here are some of our current reptile activities if you are interested.

Major reptile rebuilds are in process here as we've spent 2? 3? years now doing small bioactive setups in standard aquariums with screen lids. They have major downsides for reptile keeping such as humidity control and consistent heating along with expensive in larger sizes. Bioactive is normal soil, sand, clay, etc.. similar to the reptiles native habitat with unsealed stone and wood. Kept clean by safe bugs like isopods, soil dwelling springtails, beetles, and occasionally roaches. Frequently they are planted but it's not always possible. Particularly with big bulldozer reptiles. They have to be top heated (frowned on by many), never sterilized (causes some to have heart attacks at the thought), and generally with full spectrum lighting that sometimes includes UV replacement even for species not known to need UV(commonly argued over). This is a 40 something gallon bow setup for my lavender corn


For my current biggest project I got this octagon tank free that has been sitting in my livingroom empty for over a year. New it was over $2,000 but not manufactured anymore. I need to figure out how to replace the locks because the key was long ago lost and the doors or lid panels do not secure without a key to turn them. Aiko has decided the base is a new dog kennel for hiding because the door on the downward slanted side of the floor is always open. :lol:





The large metal vents were giving me a problem. I debated some desert reptiles for when our house humidity drops to less than 20% during winter but I didn't find any I liked and worked for those dimensions. We debated building a new lid for it but it seemed like a lot of effort. For a little while it almost became a degu enclosure or baby chinchillas. After more research though I figured out how to enclose everything below the lid for reptiles and then seal off the vents.

For now I just have thin rolled plastic sheeting on it but the velcro I installed it with is going on heavier plastic panels when I can get them cut to the shape of the existing metal panels. I converted a broken fish tank canister filter into a fogger with a floating ultrasonic water "atomizer" like are in small humidifier units or sold for fountains to push mist to the former water spray bar. I now I have the bar running along the bottom of the panel instead of vertical. It let's me make the humidity whatever I want hopefully year round. I mixed up a generic temperate, moderate humidity substrate of native Iowa soil, plant humus type compost, a little quartz sand to increase drainage, and a little coco fiber. It sits on a water permeable landscape cloth over chicken grit for the gravel drainage layer.

My kankakee bull snake male, Nicon, is testing the initial setup for me. Kankakee county is in IL on the IN border where a glacier carved out a sand prairie and developed a population of dark and tricolor bull snakes.




He says I have thwarted his attempts to pull up the seams where the landscape cloth is cut but I need to find a better way to secure the edges. I am putting it on 2x2 board frames in my plain rectangle tanks but that won't work for the multiple pieces cut to an odd shape for this one. I am thinking I will just have to find some more natural looking strips of rock either actual natural rock collected outdoors, narrow flooring/wall tile if heavy enough, or smaller landscaping bricks and just partially bury the stone when I deepen the substrate.






Per usual the glass needs cleaned again after messing around with things.


I have a well sealed 3' T5 fixture from lighting aquariums I am going to install to the bottom of 2 panels but I have to figure out how to replace the ballast so it's sitting in pieces right now. Eventually the tank may end up with green Amevia lizards but I'd have to get some and probably grow them out in a smaller enclosure for awhile. In the meantime I have numerous North American colubrids that need somewhere to go while I upgrade and play musical cages.


Just because here's Nicon's future girlfriend (name pending) but she was being antisocial after shedding.

very interesting. this is the kind of thing my lad would like to do. Is there danger is doing a more natural set up?

Not really if you make sure to set it up right and once it's all balanced it's next to no work since you aren't cleaning it out or anything. Feed the snake, add water if the system is not automatic, and make sure the CUC hasn't suffered a die off. It's just a lot of little variables getting there of mixing a substrate that holds the right moisture but is not so wet it is harmful to the reptile, providing temp gradients, how to install lighting when many reptile enclosures are not designed to be fully lit, reptile enclosures are also not designed to hold several inches of drainage and soil before the front doors either, and finally getting enough cleanup crew (CUC) established. DIY setups to avoid the limitations of commercial reptiles enclosures are then all their own planning and I'm crossing my fingers the front sliding glass panels do fit our not so impressive carpentry skills. :lol: I was going to get pics of that next. I'm building some 18x45" stacked ones behind my desk and was sealing the side and back panels of plywood with enamel tonight.

Plants add their own variables if you use them because you also have to keep them alive and match them to the substrate. Due to the substrate depth you have to top heat and since it dries the surface it's harder to design high humidity setups. That's why I went to installing foggers in everything now so I can just automatically boost humidity as I find is necessary without dumping water across the top, having to keep moist insulating materials of moss or leaves constantly replenished on the surface, or hand misting multiple times a day when I'm up to 11 enclosures.

The higher the humidity is the more mold and toadstool growth you can have or on the other end of the spectrum desert setups require an entirely different CUC from usual with beetles and sometimes roaches aimed mostly at waste cleanup rather than fungi. If you don't balance the cleanup crew for the environment you can get harmless but annoying pests like soil or grain mites, fungus gnats, fruit flies.... as well as the fungi on the natural materials and soil. The solution is usually just to up the population or diversity of the CUC and the temporary problem generally goes unnoticed by the reptile inhabitants. I keep backup cultures of the CUC in shoebox size plastic bins in case one gets too low or has a population crash. The crested geckos and asian house geckos also eat a lot of their isopods.

If you do get an illness or parasitic mite treatment is more difficult because you can't sterilize. It often relies on leaving the enclosure bare for awhile until all illness dies out or for parasitic mites you can dose predator mites but they will also eat things like springtails out of your CUC before they starve out. Predator mites are useful to kill fungus gnats or fruit flies trying to multiply in the soil if you don't rely on the really small soil dwellers much. Bad parasitic infections it's often suggested to just start over rather than risk survivors in the soil or natural materials. I haven't actually had it happen since I don't have WC reptiles and I put them on standard bedding or paper for a week or 2 prior to switching the healthy looking reptiles to their bioactive enclosure.

Thank you for posting that! I found it very interesting.

I toyed for a little while with pit farming rattlesnakes - digging swimming pool sized enclosures with straight, smooth sides, and well planted with native flora - but gave the idea up when I thought of the combo of my kids and rattlesnakes.

A bad mix! :lol:

Also quite illegal. Some warmer states might allow for outdoor enclosures but venomous reptiles require a license and inspection across the US. Aside from seeing the snakes are cared for they also make sure they are properly secured and cannot be accessed unsupervised. Usually locked enclosures in a locked room or separate building. Bad, bad things happen to your money and ability to keep animals in the future if you illegally keep unsecured venomous reptiles.

akane":1rqxql8e said:

Also quite illegal. Some warmer states might allow for outdoor enclosures but venomous reptiles require a license and inspection across the US. Aside from seeing the snakes are cared for they also make sure they are properly secured and cannot be accessed unsupervised. Usually locked enclosures in a locked room or separate building. Bad, bad things happen to your money and ability to keep animals in the future if you illegally keep unsecured venomous reptiles.

Click to expand...

:lol: Another reason I did not do it! :lol:

I placed some 4x8" slate tiles along the edges to stop digging. They'll need to settle in some places since it was hard to get flat. My arms barely reach the bottom even standing on a ladder. Nicon decided to bluff strike at me while I was digging the soil out of the gravel layer to place the barrier back down between them. Annoying bull snakes. I know he won't hit me but you can't stop from tensing up as he halts a few inches short in his threat.



Then after letting these mulberry branches dry I stripped all the leaves for leaf litter layer. The wood goes to the chinchillas.



A few days later.... Why most don't try to plant a bull snake enclosure.



Caught in the act of destruction.


I'm thinking maybe if I put the plants in biodegradable pots they can root through to protect them while they establish support but I haven't decided to try it or not yet. Plus what to try it with. I was thinking pea patridge that is a native prairie legume but it might get too tall and not have a good enough base. I might have to stick with durable groundcovers. I also need to find or build him a suitable water bowl so he stops knocking the plastic dish around and it blends in. Maybe I'll just seal some stone tiles together with aquarium silicone for a custom one.

The new 2 enclosure stack in process. It's going to hold one of the growing nothern pines and the king snake needs upgraded from his 12x30". I hope to finish sealing it tonight and start putting the floor and back panel on so I can line it up against the wall. The front needs another 2x6 to hold the substrate and then the glass doors. I have plastic tracks but I debate playing with router bits I already have to carve one into the wood instead.



I'm pretty sure just setting your head on the rock under the heat is not an efficient basking method. :lol: Kemani is getting a 48x21x18h" enclosure I picked up for $30 at an estate auction after I get the male pine moved to the stack and put a front on it. In one year she's now as long as her 36" 40gallon breeder.

I continue to follow

Not a whole lot of changes. Just sealing lots of wood with enamel, building a new lid for the 40g the female pine is in, and adding the cleanup crew. I added a few handfuls of "live" soil from outdoors to seed whatever soil critters I can but while I saw springtails in there we have a native population of predatory mites locally and when contained with limited food source and no predators they tend to wipe out springtails and many other things. It's been giving me some problems establishing enough diversity in my enclosures. We've been collecting native isopods periodically because the powder blues I've been growing don't do so well in temperate tanks. I keep the tropicals on a shelf with a poultry heat lamp flipped upside down under it.


powder blues little mold eaters


New dwarf soil burrowing species arrived to hopefully help replace the lack of springtails we can grow. They have been setup in culture bins but they are so tiny and burrow that I have no idea how they are doing. Either I'll start seeing more in a few weeks or not...



New baby magdalena plains rosy boas arrived. Male/female pair but he didn't mark them so I get to figure that out some time in the future. :lol:



I'm mixing some sandy desert substrate for the 30g long and my husband is installing a divider tonight so they can share it until ready for their own long term tanks. <br /><br /> __________ Sun Sep 30, 2018 4:28 pm __________ <br /><br /> I figured after posting my currently most complex project I'd post the temporary rosy boa bioactive tanks that took maybe 20mins to setup. I plan on moving them to the stack of enclosures when I upgrade the others so I didn't fully scrub spotless the used 10s and set them up to display but they are completely functional. While I went over them in a safe antibacterial cleaner the concept of sterile goes out the window in bioactive.

About 2/3 sand and 1/3rd plant compost. I mostly estimate the mix by look and feel now. I prefer quartz sand but ended up with a bag of a finer grain, sifted version of a more typical brown "playsand". Basically it's the same as making succulent potting soil mix but without any of the additions like perlite or artificial fertilizer sources. Low humidity tanks that aren't really watered don't typically need a drainage layer. Add flat rocks or tile hides, some weathered wood, a handful of active soil if you like, and about a dozen mealworm/darkling beetles to start a small snake in a 10. It's easily planted with things like sedum or even some cacti but for obvious reasons the spiny stuff is not preferred. Magdalena plains locality that these are from have no plant life except a creeping cholla cactus species that I am definitely not dealing with. :lol: While it probably need removed eventually due to size I might try aloe in their final 20gallons but after upgrading the current inhabitants I need to correct some of my first substrate attempts that used top soil instead of plant humus/compost before planting anything.








I ran out of che so they have 40w infrared reptile bulbs. Those still give off light snakes can see even if humans don't really notice and they have a tendency to regularly die to my bad house wiring so I have some 60w che coming. The weather sensors are a bit bulky for small tanks (hide well in large bull snake size enclosures) but they are some of the most accurate for the cost and connect remotely to a station for monitoring with temp/humidity alarm settings so useful for initially adjusting cool and warm sides. Rosy boas are desert and mountain species requiring humidity of no more than 30-40% and when using a gradient temps of 85-90F down to ~75F.