- Joined
- Jan 3, 2019
- Messages
- 1,074
Hola,
I'm a big fan of bioactive and planted enclosures, both from an aesthetics point of view for myself and humidity regulation, potential air quality improvement, and potential quality of life for the animals (hard to really measure the last two). Like a lot of people who do bioactive setups for tarantulas (specifically T's, dart frog keepers are on a whole other level entirely), I believe pothos is the gold standard for its availability, extreme hardiness and ability to thrive in a variety of conditions, and it's overall tropical appearance. My first foray into bioactive enclosures started in 2019. At the time, my local exotic pet store was selling pesticide free golden pothos cuttings by the leaf for terrariums and I picked up 5 leaves. It's hard to comprehend how prolific pothos can be unless you've experienced it yourself. The following picture is a good example though.
All of these plants and their growth are from those original 5 leaves I purchased and the periodic maintenance trimmings I've done in the one enclosure. I have more in my greenhouse and I have substantially harvested quite a lot of vines to make leaf litter as well.
Now, I'm in a position where a lot of my tarantulas are on the cusp of being placed into their final adult enclosures, and I plan on going bioactive for those that I can. I love the variegation in golden pothos, but having a rack of enclosures with just golden pothos would be quite monotonous for me. Having said that, pothos is still the gold standard and I don't really want to expand into other terrarium plants that might require a bit more care or light just yet (maybe in the future). As luck would have it, I was picking up substrate at the same exotic pet store I frequent and discovered that they had different pothos varieties in stock. I picked up these two specimens.
They weren't identified at the store, but I believe they are the 'Neon' (middle of the picture) and 'Silver/Satin' (far right of the picture) varieties (the plant on the far left is yet another golden pothos cutting from my original 5 leaves). I plan on growing these two plants out and using them as mother plants to take clones from for my enclosures. I think I'll be able to make quite an eye catching assortment of bioactive enclosures with these used in various combinations and still be able to create low maintenance bioactive enclosures thanks to pothos' hardiness. I'm already pursuing other pothos cultivars to add to my collection as well. Looks like I'm really going to be exercising my green thumb this summer lol.
Thanks,
--Matt
I'm a big fan of bioactive and planted enclosures, both from an aesthetics point of view for myself and humidity regulation, potential air quality improvement, and potential quality of life for the animals (hard to really measure the last two). Like a lot of people who do bioactive setups for tarantulas (specifically T's, dart frog keepers are on a whole other level entirely), I believe pothos is the gold standard for its availability, extreme hardiness and ability to thrive in a variety of conditions, and it's overall tropical appearance. My first foray into bioactive enclosures started in 2019. At the time, my local exotic pet store was selling pesticide free golden pothos cuttings by the leaf for terrariums and I picked up 5 leaves. It's hard to comprehend how prolific pothos can be unless you've experienced it yourself. The following picture is a good example though.
All of these plants and their growth are from those original 5 leaves I purchased and the periodic maintenance trimmings I've done in the one enclosure. I have more in my greenhouse and I have substantially harvested quite a lot of vines to make leaf litter as well.
Now, I'm in a position where a lot of my tarantulas are on the cusp of being placed into their final adult enclosures, and I plan on going bioactive for those that I can. I love the variegation in golden pothos, but having a rack of enclosures with just golden pothos would be quite monotonous for me. Having said that, pothos is still the gold standard and I don't really want to expand into other terrarium plants that might require a bit more care or light just yet (maybe in the future). As luck would have it, I was picking up substrate at the same exotic pet store I frequent and discovered that they had different pothos varieties in stock. I picked up these two specimens.
They weren't identified at the store, but I believe they are the 'Neon' (middle of the picture) and 'Silver/Satin' (far right of the picture) varieties (the plant on the far left is yet another golden pothos cutting from my original 5 leaves). I plan on growing these two plants out and using them as mother plants to take clones from for my enclosures. I think I'll be able to make quite an eye catching assortment of bioactive enclosures with these used in various combinations and still be able to create low maintenance bioactive enclosures thanks to pothos' hardiness. I'm already pursuing other pothos cultivars to add to my collection as well. Looks like I'm really going to be exercising my green thumb this summer lol.
Thanks,
--Matt