Thinking about doing a bioactive P. imperator setup, looking for advice.

SlytherinAway

Arachnopeon
Joined
Sep 17, 2018
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30
I currently have an ~3.5" emp that I've had for a few months. Right now she's in a pretty barren, basic setup but I would really love to get her set up in a beautiful bioactive enclosure.

I picked up a 32-quart Sterilite bin and a massive bag of peat moss the other day in preparation.

I must admit I got a little ahead of myself and put the peat in before a drainage layer, so tomorrow afternoon I'm going to take the peat out and put in some drainage and some screen. after that, I was going to put a few plants in and give them time to root up before I put my girl in. Probably around US thanksgiving if I were to ballpark it.

I'd probably just plant some pothos since they don't need much light at all and are just about bulletproof. I was also debating adding some moss that I've grown and maybe a cutting or two of Wandering Jew to add some color to the tub, but I'm not sure how they would tolerate the low lighting.

I was curious about the forum's thoughts. This will be my first bioactive and she's my first scorp, so a lot of this is new territory for me. One of my biggest worries is that she will just tear the plants up when she digs, but she also hasn't shown much interest in digging in her current enclosure.
 

Feral

Arachnobaron
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Good for you, I love this kinda stuff! Everybody kinda finds their own little niches within the hobby, and a big one for me is designing planted display enclosures. It's challenging and fun!

I don't keep scorpions, so I don't know how much they do or do not dig. But if they do... a drainage layer and mesh/screen in the enclosure sounds like a bad idea. Or at least a possibly ineffective one. Your call, you probably know scorpions way better than me. But you could do what I do for my terrestrial Ts... I bury small containers (in my case, repurposed clear plastic pint-sized ice cream pots) that have been given false bottoms and substrate, then planted. Just like what you're doing, just on a smaller scale. So you don't really have to worry about your creature tearing up the mesh or pulling up your drainage layer. I mean, if you have a seriously determined digger and they start to dig into the top of the actual planter, you could try putting rocks there. But I haven't had that problem. And these containers don't affect the moisture levels in the surrounding substrate, if that's a concern. Bonus, I can move them or remove them, if needed. Some people plant directly into the substrate without any false bottom, but I haven't done that. (Actually, the latest enclosure I set up has one of my planted containers on one side and plants directly into the substrate on the other side, but that experiment has not been going for long enough to comment on it yet.)

One of the keys to success with plants is light. I don't know what "low" light means to you or in your case. But in general, Pothos can take a lot of abuse, including lower light levels and lower watering/feeding levels. Wandering Jew is great and can totally work but does need somewhat more light and moisture than Pothos. There are a billion types of moss, but they generally require much higher light and much higher moisture than I think you're prepared to provide, and probably more light and moisture than your scorpion wants to deal with.

What light will you be using?

If you're going to use any other plants besides Pothos, you might have to either use a better substrate than straight up peat (which I think is pretty acidic and nutrient-deficient, btw) or add a invert-safe fertilizer, which can be tricky. Personally, I use straight cocofiber with a bit of shredded moss and crumpled leaf litter and some activated carbon, then occasionally use aquarium water to water the plants, which has nitrates from the aquatic animals and some leftover aquarium fertilizer for low macros and full micros (I generally consider about anything I can use with my aquatic inverts to probably be safe with my terrestrial inverts. But that's just me.)

If it were me, I'd start with some Pothos variant (possibly also the Wandering Jew, but might have a higher chance of failure, depending) in a smaller container that has a false bottom and reasonable substrate buried within the enclosure, give it plenty of time to acclimate and start actively growing before introducing the scorpion, keep the scorpion's comfort as a priority, and be thinking of it all as an experiment that may or may not go well. As the Budhists say, maintain a state of equanimous non-attachment. :D Since you're working with a living being, he may alter his environment in ways with which you don't necessarily agree, so you gotta be prepared to roll with the punches. And since you're working with living plants, they may not agree with your arrangement of their environment and make their disapproval known, so you gotta be prepared to roll with those punches, too. But that's the fun of it! As long as you're game, it can be a marvelous experiment!

Good luck and enjoy!
 
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Arthroverts

Arachnoking
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Emperor Scorpions, when provided with a proper environment, will dig quite a bit and form elaborate burrows, and that will probably be the end of any plants placed directly into the substrate. Therefore, I think that @Feral's suggestion about using pots planted into the sub is a good one to look into, just look out for residual pesticides/fertilizers within the potting medium for the plant.

Light will probably be your most important determiner, as from my experience pothos just doesn't do well in invertebrate cages without a good light source. It can take a lot of abuse, but from my experience it just barely clings to life and looks awful without proper lighting. Same goes for Wandering Jew, but even more so from what I've heard. As for moss...let's just say that moss is not good for most invertebrate enclosures due to its high light and humidity requirements, plus its general sensitivity.

Otherwise I would suggest looking at how others have done it here on the boards and elsewhere online; there are also quite a few YouTuber's who have done spectacular planted setups that we could all learn from.

Hope this helps,

Arthroverts
 

Feral

Arachnobaron
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Oh, yes, good point.
To be clear, I don't use a "potting medium", per se. I don't use anything in the containers that wouldn't be safe for me to use throughout the whole enclosure. In my case, I use cocofiber and a bit of shredded pillow moss in the enclosure, and in my pots I used that plus a little crumbled (T-safe) leaf litter and some activated carbon. Which is all safe. If I added a bit of sand and some organic orchid bark, it would basically be ABG mix, which is also safe for inverts. I would never use potting soil or anything possibly chemically or pesticidey or fertilizery. (Beside the aquatic invert-safe fertilizer I mentioned.)

Also, I grew all my plants from well-washed cuttings rooted in water, so I know they are free of harmful stuff and also were never planted in harmful soil.

Yes, good point, @Arthroverts.
 

Vanisher

Arachnoking
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Some years ago i designed the terrariums to mimic the habitat where the spiders originated from. I kept P murinus Brachypelma sp and G rosea in tank with rocky inviroment and clay substrate. I kept T blondi and X immanis in rainforrest terrarium and A geniculata and L parahybana in something in between. It was pretty fun
 

Feral

Arachnobaron
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Some years ago i designed the terrariums to mimic the habitat where the spiders originated from. I kept P murinus Brachypelma sp and G rosea in tank with rocky inviroment and clay substrate. I kept T blondi and X immanis in rainforrest terrarium and A geniculata and L parahybana in something in between. It was pretty fun
That's awesome, how fun!
I keep pulchra, so the enclosure I most recently set up is made to look like the Pampas grassland. It's not a true biotope with accurate location-specific plant species and whatnot. but like the Pampas just in appearance. It was so interesting to do! You do it too, you know what I'm saying. It's cool there are others here that dig that sort of thing, too, awesome.
 

AzJohn

Arachnoking
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I’ve done several bioactive tanks for dart frogs. I use a high quality LED light for a planted fresh water aquarium. It will grow pretty much anything I’ve put in a tank. Sense no one mentioned them I will. If you are going with bio active you’ll need to get spring tails at least. You might want to leave the isopods out because I’ve seen reports that they can get protein hungry and eat molting animals. I had dwarf isopods in my tarantula tanks for years with no problems, but others have had issues. I’m not sure you would need a drainage layer. They are really only needed when you add so much water it needs a place to drain in order to keep the substrate from rotting. Using peat only kind of defeats the purpose of a drainage layer because if it holds so much moisture it won’t drain any way. In frog keeping, we’d use ABG substrate that holds moisture and drains quickly. But again, I think a drainage layer with ABG substrate is way overkill for inverts. Check out a dart frog forum for plants other than pothos if you want to see other stuff that might work.
 

Spidery spoo

Arachnopeon
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Feb 5, 2018
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Im planning on doing the same with H. Spinifer a few molts down the line. The idea I've had is to use the small aquatic plant pots I've got from when I purchased some from pets at home. They have holes down the sides allowing the roots to stretch out as they please while keeping a decent amount of them protected.
 

SlytherinAway

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Sep 17, 2018
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thanks everyone for the feedback!

I love the idea of putting the plants into containers instead of just sticking them into the substrate. definitely doing that!

as for light, I would probably just use natural sunlight that comes into my room which is why I was planning on using the pothos. I've got pothos coming out of my ears so I can definitely spare some to put in here.

I won't worry about taking the sub out if you think a false bottom might be a bad idea, I just saw the idea on the stickied emp care sheet and thought I might include it.

i need to make a run to either the local pet store or hop online for some cork rounds to stick into the substrate.
 

Feral

Arachnobaron
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Sounds good, I'm excited for you!

With the natural sunlight, it could work fine. I mean, if you could grow a potted Pothos in the spot normally, I don't see why Pothos in an enclosure would fare any differently, provided the enclosure itself isn't blocking any light. But be sure that direct sunlight never hits the enclosure directly, at any time of day or any time of year. That's bad juju waiting to happen. I myself just had an experience with the sun's angle changing now that the season is changing and discovering it was unexpectedly hitting my nano aquarium, even though I was reasonably sure that wasn't possible. Yikes!

@AzJohn's advice about using aquarium lighting is a very good one, if you decide to go the atrificial light route. They are some excellent aquatic planted tank bulbs and fixtures, just like he said! I use super cheap aquatic LED fixtures and they work great for my purposes. There are also aquatic planted tank people who don't use aqaurium-specific lighting, there are also (often cheaper) options for fixtures and bulbs in all the big box stores that are made for regular home use but can be used for aquatic/plant lighting with just a little knowledge. You know, in case you decide you want more than ambient natural light (which is a fine choice by itself, of course, just giving options).

Also, don't feel like springtails are absolutely required in a planted enclosure. I don't have experience with them, so I can't say if they would or wouldn't be beneficial in your situation, but I can tell you from experience that they're not necessarily necessary in every single planted setup as a blanket rule and it's possible for planted enclosures to be stable and thrive without them.

I'm so excited for you! And admittedly, kinda jealous. I wish I had a new enclosure to plan and design and scape. :D Enjoy!
 
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SlytherinAway

Arachnopeon
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Sep 17, 2018
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lol, thank you very much!
I'm probably going to toss in some springs just so they can take care of any potential mold/fungus issues I might have. I had about an assload before summer, but I got lazy and stopped feeding my colonies so now I'm down to next to none, unfortunately.
 

woodie

Arachnosquire
Joined
Aug 25, 2019
Messages
118
I currently have an ~3.5" emp that I've had for a few months. Right now she's in a pretty barren, basic setup but I would really love to get her set up in a beautiful bioactive enclosure.

I picked up a 32-quart Sterilite bin and a massive bag of peat moss the other day in preparation.

I must admit I got a little ahead of myself and put the peat in before a drainage layer, so tomorrow afternoon I'm going to take the peat out and put in some drainage and some screen. after that, I was going to put a few plants in and give them time to root up before I put my girl in. Probably around US thanksgiving if I were to ballpark it.

I'd probably just plant some pothos since they don't need much light at all and are just about bulletproof. I was also debating adding some moss that I've grown and maybe a cutting or two of Wandering Jew to add some color to the tub, but I'm not sure how they would tolerate the low lighting.

I was curious about the forum's thoughts. This will be my first bioactive and she's my first scorp, so a lot of this is new territory for me. One of my biggest worries is that she will just tear the plants up when she digs, but she also hasn't shown much interest in digging in her current enclosure.
 

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Feral

Arachnobaron
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I can't say how fit they are for whatever scorpion species because I don't keep them, but I can certainly say that those enclosures are very very lovely! Well done! *applauds*
 

Feral

Arachnobaron
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Also, I heart your Scindapsis, @woodie! I don't have any in enclosures but it's one of my favorite regular houseplants. They're beautiful! Especially with that slight silver glitter the leaves get. Love it. Yours looks very happy, just like everything else!
 

woodie

Arachnosquire
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I just use regular led shop lights from Lowes. Have double rows over tanks on racks
 

Feral

Arachnobaron
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Why is my post rated "sad"? Please clarify.
 
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