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Been making more of these lately so I thought I'd start my own thread on the topic.
The goal is to create an ecosystem that is moderately self-sustainable, requires minimal maintenance, is beautiful and functional; and houses a tarantula in a visually pleasing, naturalist display.
Here is my latest creation
I start with about a 1" layer of hydrocottle, clay balls as a drainage layers. Top that with screen cloth (not metal) and a layer of substrate mix. I then add biomatter like leaf litter and shredded moss and then a scoop of granulated activated charcoal with springtails. Then water it. I top that with more substrate mix and tamp it down as the base.
At that point I mock up the wood and plants. In this case I made a cork bark "retaining wall" to hold the plant to provide more depth for the plant's roots. I positioned a cork bark round next to the wall and scooped out the substrate base around the cork to submerge the cork bark a bit to give it some stability. No glue is used in these builds.
I insert the plant's root ball and back fill with substrate mix, pack down and water; and repeat. I the backfill a slope from the back wall around the outside of the cork structure and top with live carpet moss. The front is filled with decomposing wood, leaf litter and topped with oak leaves. Isopods were added from my other tanks since they've been breeding like mad in my other tanks.
I added sphagnum moss around the plant base and in the cork hollow with a few more oak leaves; then watered again.
I will let this get established for about a month, feeding the custodians with dried rice grains for the springtails and fish flake for the isopods.
I also throw a few live female crickets in once in a while to inject eggs into the moss and substrate, and when they die, the custodians clean them up. Such a happy little cycle.
The goal is to create an ecosystem that is moderately self-sustainable, requires minimal maintenance, is beautiful and functional; and houses a tarantula in a visually pleasing, naturalist display.
Here is my latest creation
I start with about a 1" layer of hydrocottle, clay balls as a drainage layers. Top that with screen cloth (not metal) and a layer of substrate mix. I then add biomatter like leaf litter and shredded moss and then a scoop of granulated activated charcoal with springtails. Then water it. I top that with more substrate mix and tamp it down as the base.
At that point I mock up the wood and plants. In this case I made a cork bark "retaining wall" to hold the plant to provide more depth for the plant's roots. I positioned a cork bark round next to the wall and scooped out the substrate base around the cork to submerge the cork bark a bit to give it some stability. No glue is used in these builds.
I insert the plant's root ball and back fill with substrate mix, pack down and water; and repeat. I the backfill a slope from the back wall around the outside of the cork structure and top with live carpet moss. The front is filled with decomposing wood, leaf litter and topped with oak leaves. Isopods were added from my other tanks since they've been breeding like mad in my other tanks.
I added sphagnum moss around the plant base and in the cork hollow with a few more oak leaves; then watered again.
I will let this get established for about a month, feeding the custodians with dried rice grains for the springtails and fish flake for the isopods.
I also throw a few live female crickets in once in a while to inject eggs into the moss and substrate, and when they die, the custodians clean them up. Such a happy little cycle.
