Bioactive enclosures

[18ebolling]

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Stirmi or blondi??

 

[Arachnoclown]

Stirmi or blondi??

Stirmi

 

[18ebolling]

That picture with the cat is awesome ! Does he just watch them or does he try to mess with them , I've been terrified of my cat noticing the T's

 

[18ebolling]

Stirmi

Impressive, definitely planning on owning one of them or both of them one day .

 

[Arachnoclown]

That picture with the cat is awesome ! Does he just watch them or does he try to mess with them , I've been terrified of my cat noticing the T's

Just watches...not allowed in the room usually.

 

[Sonicookie]

I can confirm, pothos are an excellent plant when it comes to hardiness, except for one breed that I think may be called jade? Golden is good. I've had some for years and years, one that my sibling got in elementary school and one that the neighbors tried to throw away 11 or so years ago.

I love seeing these plant-filled terrariums, it makes me excited for when I'll have my own place to fill with tarantulas, it will be glorious but probably lonely, people are usually scared of T's.

 

[menavodi]

Good looking terrarium and setup @Arachnoclown Very nice!

 

[ABYZL]

So I generally want to move more towards planted cages / bioactive . does a planted cage have to be bioactive or can plants survive without the spring tails and such ? What lights do you all use to promote plant growth without generally disturbing the T too much ? Also some of these cages are small and wouldn't even allow a full sized dome lamp are there minis for things like exo terras?

My T's get bioactive once large enough to go into their adult enclosures. For those that like some humidity I start with with a drainage layer of clay balls topped with a mix of coir and a forest floor substrate blend. I tend to pot the plants in spider safe top soil so they don't get damaged by digging or saturate the substrate when I water them, I bury the pots in the substrate. Most of my guys are fossorial or terrestrial so I only plant one area leaving them plenty of room to tunnel if they choose to. I'm still experimenting with plants but calathea and pepperomia seem to be doing the best and don't need huge amounts of water. I make cork bark backgrounds for these enclosures with integral areas for planting above ground level, Bromelaids work well like this as do nepenthes. Air plants and epiphyte orchids can be attached directly to the background or hard decor. I use springtails in T enclosures, isopodes and other CUC can present a risk to moulting and post moult T's. I'll be looking at a slightly drier bioactive set up for my c, darlingi when she's a little bigger, thinking a savannah type set up with excavation earth base under a drier substrate mix and succulent plants. Spring tails should still work but I'm hoping to find some other possibilities. For lighting I currently use aquarium LED lights as designed for plant growth, submersible so certainly moisture proof, non-heat emitting or at least very low heat, and safe for T's. They also have dimming functions so I can give the plants bright light for part of the day then make it a bit less full on for the T's the rest of it. I can also change them to red which doesn't disturb the T's at all.