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

[Outpost31Survivor]

View attachment 324882

What are housed in those six terrariums on the middle shelves?

 

[Arthroverts]

I was gonna ask the same thing.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[woodie]

Mostly some geckos. My sons Kuhl's flying geckos, Eurydactylodes agricolae, Heteronotia binoei, Paroedura androyensis and a male orange stripe gargoyle gecko

 

[woodie]

@Arthroverts .
You live up near me one day have to come by. Sure there are some extra goodies laying around here for a fellow hobbyist

 

[Arthroverts]

@Arthroverts .
You live up near me one day have to come by. Sure there are some extra goodies laying around here for a fellow hobbyist

Thanks for the offer! Let me check my schedule...

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[Willa]

My P. imperator is an absolutely bulldozer, so I would worry about a mesh drainage layer. Perhaps get a piece of plastic and drill holes all over it so your scorpion doesn't tear it up/get caught in it. Mine routinely digs along the bottom so I can see where that might be an issue, especially in a habitat that would encourage it so much. Same thing with the plants. Maybe give them cork round pots or something similar so they don't get ripped up. I've also had luck creating artificial burrows with a half log and small cork flat entrance to encourage mine not to dig everything up (she almost collapsed a burrow while molting and scared the crud out of me).

 

[Feral]

Perhaps get a piece of plastic and drill holes all over it so your scorpion doesn't tear it up/get caught in it.

Just this one part, I think your post is otherwise helpful and great!

This part made me think of using egg crate diffuser, instead of drilled plastic. It seems sooo much easier! And more durable! Also lighter in weight, because there's no drainage medium.

For an excellent example of creating a false bottom with egg crate diffuser, zip ties, and mesh/plastic screen, look at videos by SerpaDesign* on YT. You build a five sided box (no bottom) with egg crate diffuser held together with zip ties to match the dimension of the inside bottom of your enclosure. Then cover it in your barrier material and affix the material by poking small holes in it, then running zip ties through the holes and around the diffuser structure. SepaDesign does this a lot and illustrates the process really well, although he doesn't always attach the barrier to the structure. But yeah no... Et voilà, false bottom!

I've never used this method, but if for some reason my individual-containers-with-false-bottoms-inside-a-larger-enclosure system wouldn't work and I need a false bottom over the entire enclosure, I'd do the diffuser method. Seems much more sturdy and impervious to being dug up, since it's all one connected structure instead of loose drainage material balls with a unconnected barrier material. But I guess a super determined digger could still maybe tear the fabric? Hmmm...

(* But I wouldn't recommend his video where he does an enclosure for a scorpion. It's beautiful, for sure! But it seems not ideal, even problematic, for the animal. But maybe I'm wrong, I don't keep scorps.)