Same lmfaooo

Idc what anyone says they're definitely easier to maintain lol. They may not be completely task free, but overall you might spend single digit hours dealing with it throughout an entire year while with normal tanks you're going to spend more time than that in the first month or so.

@@colecampbell1906 I feel like having to take everything out and clean the whole enclosure to get rid of pet waste is enough to go this route. Trimming plants seem like a way better task than cleaning poop.

@@Polimathe exactly. It's technically got some things to do here and there, but it's so small that it's basically free of maintenance.

It's definitely not cheaper (though that may be because I keep many types of rare plants in my enclosures lol), but in my experience a bioactive vivarium is much more fun to set up. It's also more fun and less time consuming to maintain: I prefer trimming plants and occasionally wiping poop off a leaf to taking everything out, cleaning poop, sanitizing plastic plants, etc. I'm interested in both animals AND plants so a vivarium is perfect. And if someone isn't interested in plants, something like pothos is pretty and very easy to grow in a bioactive setup! Just chuck a piece of it on damp soil and it'll grow effortlessly. My vivarium is so beautiful, like a cube of tropical paradise in the middle of my cold Canadian home :P

The guy who just got done sweating like crazy taking heavy bags of coco fiber to the trash and wiping his tank with veterinary disinfectants disagrees.

I'm also about to do the same. Since your comment is a year old, might I ask how well your son is doing? Have you had any pushback from family?

Not really. I took all my plants from outside. I have ebony spleenwort, marsh marigold, wintergreen, partridge berry, and a bunch of moss. And all the critters came from outside as well. Just have to buy a glass jug/bowl/tank. Try it! Nothing to lose!

Try adding a thicker layer of leaf litter to the ground? I have a very dramatic T who also doesn't like moss touching her and covering the substrate with leaves helped.

@@TatianasTinyZoo thanks! I'll try that

Great question! You can take some out to start a new colony, or move them to a different tank. You can sell them if you want the hassle of shipping - there's a good market for them. Or you can even use them as feeder insects occasionally, but I wouldn't feed too many.

If you have any pet stores near by that you notice are short on spring tails or isopods honestly see if they’ll be willing to buy small tubs of of you

​@@sammstudios6534 please don't, they can be invasive specie and we don't want that

Thanks for your support ☺️

I would recommend repotting your plants into fresh soil as soon as you bring them home as well as washing the leaves. If you leave the plants to grow outside of an enclosure for a few weeks, this should be safe enough for your animals! If you don't have time, rinsing the leaves and roots really well before planting into a viv might be good enough, but I would still give the plants a few weeks to grow BEFORE introducing any animals into the enclosure.

@@TatianasTinyZoo thanks for responding! i’ll be sure to do that

replanting any plant as soon as you get it can actually kill the plant so please give the plant a few day to settle in into the house

It's probably safe to use as long as it's fresh water and your critters don't drink it.

Based on what other people are saying in the comments, just take them out of the tank and do whatever with them. Sell them, throw them in your garden, etc.

I’ve personally never had an issue with my isopod or springtail colonies taking over in my 4x2x2 foot enclosure. They’ll clean up basically anything biodegradable like poop, shed skin, leaf litter, mosses etc. I’ve observed waves in the population, sometimes there’s a lot of adults and then they’ll die out as the babies grow and eventually take their place. But as stated in other comments, you can remove some to start another colony or sell off. Or perform some extra maintenance like cleaning up the excess skins or poops if you see them, so there’s less food to go around.

You can absolutely avoid feeding live insects to a blue tongue! There are canned or freeze dried insects that you can feed instead, or they can get their protein from canned dog food or ground raw meat. 80 gallons might be a bit small for an adult northern. It would be fine for a juvenile but a 4 foot by 2 foot enclosure or larger is recommended for adults. Blue tongue skinks need high temps for their basking spots (90-100+ depending on the sub species) but can tolerate colder temps at night. Unless your house gets colder than 68-65, I wouldn't worry about it. If it does, maybe a ceramic heat emitter for night times would work! I do have several care videos for blue tongue skinks up on my channel in case you have more questions!

@@TatianasTinyZoo this clears things up, thank you! I found out about zen habitats and there enclosures are very affordable, so the price is not a problem anymore. I also found out you can attach it with other enclosures making upgrading far more easy and affordable!

You can often get them from reptile shows or online ^-^

I agree that fake plastic plants are usually pretty ugly, and that a bioactive enclosure with real plants is worth it for many species! However I don't think it's wrong to use articifial plants to give your animals some extra enrichment, like if your vivarium plants haven't grown in yet. And sometimes keeping a sick or new animal in quarantine, and setting up a bin with paper towels and some fake plants is necessary (ie. you want a relatively sterile environment to prevent your animal from getting their recently injured foot infected). Additionally, it's difficult to set up a bioactive vivarium for certain species, for example bearded dragons. They live in deserts, so isopods and springtails won't be as abundant and will probably only be able to live in and around any wet areas (like a humid hide or near the water dish). Which means there's a very small "cleanup crew" that has to deal with a lot of poop from a pretty big lizard. And since bearded dragons are pretty big and they climb on everything, they can easily destroy smaller plants. Desert plants take a lot longer to heal and grow compared to rainforest plants, so a lot of keepers use fake succulents and grasses for enrichment (and to make the tank more beautiful).