Bioactive A Genic Enclosure School Project

A

Acal57

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 31, 2006
Messages
98
Hello everyone, It's been a long time since I've been on here. A lot has happened. I got out of the hobby, got married, had kids and now am homeschooling the kids thanks to the VID.

I thought that creating a self-sustaining tropical vivarium could be the basis of a lot of science lessons. To be clear, I kept all my Ts and most other critters on topsoil or coco fibre and I realize that Bioactive terrariums are not necessary to tarantula keeping. I've never done a bioactive setup before and would like to look at some literature or other resources on the subject. I'm not going to order an overpriced kit but I do want to learn what to put together to make a self sustaining environment.

I bought a 2" A genic female for our alpha predator, several tropical plants from the amazon where A genic is from. I know I should add springtails and small non threatening isopods but it's the fungal and bacterial aspects I want more data on. What makes dirt work? Can I use a handful dirt (soil bacteria) from coniferous forest to culture my substrate mix (I live in Northern BC). Getting a handful of soil from the amazon seems like a stretch.

Anyone have some good resources for this project? Thanks
 
Dorifto

Dorifto

He who moists xD
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
2,773
Hi! Nice to see new people trying bioactive enclosures! 😁

First of all, the most important thing that will make those enclosure work or fail misserably is the ventilation. It's the key. Whithout that, the T will die of suffocation.

Are you a crafty guy? This is the blueprint of one of my enclosures. You can build one for cheap if you order the panels at your local glazier. I made one for 40€ - 50 bucks.

IMG_20200523_002020.jpg
Regarding to the substrate, I'd use topsoil. It works wonderfully. You won't have any mold issues at all, and the isopods and springtails will help you to control any possible issues with it. Mushrooms on them? Don't worry, they mean that the substrate is healthy, it's cycling nutrients.

Clean up crews (CUCs), I use springtails (white and silvers) isopods (porcellios and trichorhinas), eathworms, and other cucs that came with the plants. If you can source some substrate from a near forest that has not been treated with pesticides, nice, it should work too, it comes with all the microbiome included. If not, plain topsoil.

Now the plants. They should be choosed based on the T's needs and the ventilation capabilities of the enclosure. Do not choose very water dependant plants. Next ones work nicely for a geniculata:

Chamaedorea elegans
Ficus pumila
Hedera helix
Pellaea rotundifolia
Neprholepis exaltata

An active fan system will help if the things get stagnant for any reason, like moisting too much the substrate etc.

This is the build thread:

Foam background enclosure tutorial

Hi guys, seeing that some people are asking about how I made my setup, I´m going to make a litlle tuto about it. It may look difficult, but It was more easy than I thought. The tools: - A propper enclosure, I choosed the European style glass enclosures, since they are cheap, they have a great...
arachnoboards.com

Pretty soon I'll made another tutorial regarding the misting system, as a lot of people asked me about it.

I'll try to answer more questions tomorrow, I'm a bit tired now, so my grammar will suck hahahahaha xD ask every question you have regarding to it, without any hesitation!
 
Last edited:
Dorifto

Dorifto

He who moists xD
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
2,773
Acal57 said:
Can I use a handful dirt (soil bacteria) from coniferous forest to culture my substrate mix (I live in Northern BC). Getting a handful of soil from the amazon seems like a stretch
Click to expand...
Yesterday I was like a zombie trying to answer 🤣🤣🤣

Is there any other type of forest? Like oaks etc, some conifers like cedar may contain dangerous essential oils that can pose a threat to invertebrates, so I don't know how decayed barks could affect the substrate's chemical composition,

There is no need of getting any soil directly from the amazon hahahaha. Get some dirt and mix it with topsoil, scotts, westlands and earthgro are the most used ones here. Doing that you are adding benefical bacterias to the topsoil. Make the enclosure put the plants and leave it for some weeks to settle. Sometimes within that time a CO² burst could happen in the substrate, so do not add isopods or springtails until few weeks after that, or they could die of suffocation.

I personally use:

-Isopods: Porcellio Laevis, Porcellio Scaber, Porcellio Pruinous and Trichorhina tormentosa
-Springtails: white and grey ones
-Earthworms, few use them but I like how they aerate the substrate and "decompose" the organic matter. Also the geniculata loves them... Between them and the isopods, the geniculata is ruining me hahahaha. They thrive fine, so I don't have any needs to add them.
-Few other bugs that came with plants, like micro scolopendras, mites and nemathods (good ones).

For the lightning I use two 120cm fish tank led lamps that bought pretty cheap. But any full spectrum led lamp should work.

Active fans, they help a lot to reduce any stagnant environment if your weather gets thick. But a good passive ventilation system helps too, and imho is mandatory.

Misting system. It's not neccesary at all, but overall, I need way less water to keep the background thriving fine, also it helped me to revive a moss chunk that usually is hard to keep. I have four 50 microns nozzles pointing the background, so the sprays don't disturb the Ts at all. They never show any sign of stress nor any bad reaction, if not I wouldn't use it, instead the geniculata use the misting for hydrating using the moss like a water source.
 
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