Bioactive Enclosure Questions

[LoudEnProud]

Hi everyone, I just made a bioactive setup for my beardie for the first time and I had a few questions.

1. I bought Dwarf white and purple isopods as well as springtails for the clean up crew. How should I maintain them without increasing the enclosures humidity?
2. If I bake my beardies leftover greens and dry them out can I use that for CUC food/in place of leaf litter?
3. Since my CUC are all quite small, how do I keep track of how well they are doing? Will it be obvious?
4. I’ve included mealworms as well as part of the CUC/extra snacks for my beardie, is this okay?

I’ll also include a picture as this is my first setup and I’m very proud. He is in a 4x3x2 PVC enclosure. I used foam and a giant cork round that I ended up splitting to make a semi-tunnel and sealed it all with grout and drylok. The substrate is a Topsoil, playsand, coco coir mix. I put in a spineless prickly pear and an aloe plant for now but am considering adding some smaller oregano and mint plants

 

[Hazel_Basil10]

I don't have a bioactive tank. I think someone here was asking about bioactive tanks as well.

 

[Chris.]

Hi there.
1. There are isopods that do really well in arid enviroments. The ones from cuba (grey or orange ones) do pretty well for me but white ones are probably fine as well. Same with the springtales, there are arid ones out there but the tropical ones can survive a lot as well.
2. I don't know but I would guess so. Usually they should be fine with the coconut fibres for a while...
3. No it will not and you can't really tell. The springtales I only see when I dig in the soil and the isopods will most likely burry themselves most of the times. Except the cuba isopods, they are on the surface often when they reach maturity.
4. You might end up with some beatles IMO but otherwise should be ok I guess.

@J4ckdaw- can probably tell you a thing or two more about isopods I would imagine

 

[J4ckdaw-]

Hi everyone, I just made a bioactive setup for my beardie for the first time and I had a few questions.

1. I bought Dwarf white and purple isopods as well as springtails for the clean up crew. How should I maintain them without increasing the enclosures humidity?
2. If I bake my beardies leftover greens and dry them out can I use that for CUC food/in place of leaf litter?
3. Since my CUC are all quite small, how do I keep track of how well they are doing? Will it be obvious?
4. I’ve included mealworms as well as part of the CUC/extra snacks for my beardie, is this okay?

I’ll also include a picture as this is my first setup and I’m very proud. He is in a 4x3x2 PVC enclosure. I used foam and a giant cork round that I ended up splitting to make a semi-tunnel and sealed it all with grout and drylok. The substrate is a Topsoil, playsand, coco coir mix. I put in a spineless prickly pear and an aloe plant for now but am considering adding some smaller oregano and mint plants

Hi there

I breed and raise isopod culture so I can give you a hand here; isopods are very low maintenance animals, they are also pretty hardy and can endure harsher climates depending on their species and morph.

They don’t NEED constant moisture if they are kept in the proper conditions, though unless you are offering soaked sphagnum moss/other absorbent material they need to be misted weekly so they stay hydrated.

I mist mine weekly and they are doing fine, I have about 250-300 individuals in my colony though my first generation has started dying off. They are kept at around 40% humidity when they haven’t been spritzed and 50-60% when they have been.

A bearded dragon’s natural habitat does rain occasionally and when/if you bathe them, they are sitting in 100% humidity. As long as it’s not a constant humidity of 60% or higher it shouldn’t hurt once a week. Sphagnum moss might cause a bit of trouble though.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask, I’m always open to discuss this kind of topic with people who’d like to learn!

Good luck

 

[LoudEnProud]

Hi there.
1. There are isopods that do really well in arid enviroments. The ones from cuba (grey or orange ones) do pretty well for me but white ones are probably fine as well. Same with the springtales, there are arid ones out there but the tropical ones can survive a lot as well.
2. I don't know but I would guess so. Usually they should be fine with the coconut fibres for a while...
3. No it will not and you can't really tell. The springtales I only see when I dig in the soil and the isopods will most likely burry themselves most of the times. Except the cuba isopods, they are on the surface often when they reach maturity.
4. You might end up with some beatles IMO but otherwise should be ok I guess.

@J4ckdaw- can probably tell you a thing or two more about isopods I would imagine

Awesome! Thank you so much that was very helpful. Are beetles bad? I saw someone include mealworms in their CUC and then after I already included them I read that it wasn’t the best idea. They seem to be doing well at the moment but my beardie isn’t really digging for them like I expected him too. Also realizing I forgot to post a picture in the original post so this is what it looked like before I included the leaf litter and some cork bark pieces

 

[LoudEnProud]

Hi there

I breed and raise isopod culture so I can give you a hand here; isopods are very low maintenance animals, they are also pretty hardy and can endure harsher climates depending on their species and morph.

They don’t NEED constant moisture if they are kept in the proper conditions, though unless you are offering soaked sphagnum moss/other absorbent material they need to be misted weekly so they stay hydrated.

I mist mine weekly and they are doing fine, I have about 250-300 individuals in my colony though my first generation has started dying off. They are kept at around 40% humidity when they haven’t been spritzed and 50-60% when they have been.

A bearded dragon’s natural habitat does rain occasionally and when/if you bathe them, they are sitting in 100% humidity. As long as it’s not a constant humidity of 60% or higher it shouldn’t hurt once a week. Sphagnum moss might cause a bit of trouble though.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask, I’m always open to discuss this kind of topic with people who’d like to learn!

Good luck

Awesome thank you for the info. I have been spraying a spot about once a week. It hasn’t been raising the humidity too much so maybe I’m not spraying enough? My hygrometers have been pretty consistently between 40-45% humidity. The substrate wasn’t completely dry when I put it in the enclosure and is still a little wet when I dig down so that’s probably why it’s been around 40-44%

 

[J4ckdaw-]

Awesome thank you for the info. I have been spraying a spot about once a week. It hasn’t been raising the humidity too much so maybe I’m not spraying enough? My hygrometers have been pretty consistently between 40-45% humidity. The substrate wasn’t completely dry when I put it in the enclosure and is still a little wet when I dig down so that’s probably why it’s been around 40-44%

Your humidity sounds fine. My colony sit at about 43%-46% without issue, the only issue is drying out. With a basking light on every day of the week you might have to up the amount of times you mist them. Make sure deeper in the substrate holds moisture.

 

[LoudEnProud]

Your humidity sounds fine. My colony sit at about 43%-46% without issue, the only issue is drying out. With a basking light on every day of the week you might have to up the amount of times you mist them. Make sure deeper in the substrate holds moisture.

Great! I read that you can do pockets of wet spots under cork or rock so that’s what I’ve been doing. My wet spot is kinda in a cave area so it’s not getting direct heat so do you think I should still spray it more/disagree with the wet spot theory?

 

[J4ckdaw-]

Great! I read that you can do pockets of wet spots under cork or rock so that’s what I’ve been doing. My wet spot is kinda in a cave area so it’s not getting direct heat so do you think I should still spray it more/disagree with the wet spot theory?

I can confirm the wet spot theory, actually. I also breed a variety of millipedes/centipedes and I added a layer of pebbles beneath their substrate, it surprisingly holds moisture very well. As long as you have a wet spot/high humidity area your isopods should be fine!

 

[Chris.]

Awesome! Thank you so much that was very helpful. Are beetles bad? I saw someone include mealworms in their CUC and then after I already included them I read that it wasn’t the best idea. They seem to be doing well at the moment but my beardie isn’t really digging for them like I expected him too. Also realizing I forgot to post a picture in the original post so this is what it looked like before I included the leaf litter and some cork bark pieces

No, the beatles are not bad but do not usually get eaten
Let us know how it is going in the weeks to come!