Bioactive Build

[Dbash44]

@hiddenflaws

Here's some photos of the background I made using the method that didn't work out too well. I finished this in the beginning of October 2019. The first three pics are the background then. The last two photos are how it's held up over time to the present. I still use it and it serves it's purpose well. The only one who's bugged by the yellow spots is me. OH and I forgot to mention that I used non-toxic brown paint and moss to touch up some of the areas that the substrate didn't stick to.

 

[Dbash44]

Anyway, back to the build for the bioactive enclosure.

Here's a picture after the first layer of the silicone and the substrate. Did some more touch ups in some of the areas exposed in the picture.

Next I'll be adding moss.

The plants I chose to use I have used prior to this with no bad experiences. My plant selection for this enclosure (which I'll attach pictures of later) are:

Ivy (I believe some of it is mildly toxic if ingested)
Purple Velvet Plant
Two or three types of ferns (for shadier spots)
Schefflera
Aluminum Plant
Pathos
Zebra Plant
Bromeliad
Vanilla Bean Orchid
Live Moss (maybe)
Tillandsia (maybe)

I'll be using ABG Mix for the substrate which consists of:
Organic grey charcoal
Orchid Bark
Leaf litter (apple leaves, oak leaves, et cetera)
Coco husk
Sphagnum Moss

 

[Dbash44]

I spent another $90 on plants today. Whoopsie! I'll post pictures of all of them later tonight

 

[Connorology]

I spent another $90 on plants today. Whoopsie! I'll post pictures of all of them later tonight

Looks good so far. I've done a couple similar builds, feel free to shoot me a DM if you want to discuss anything. I bought and tested several inexpensive light bulbs for their effectiveness growing plants in a tall vivarium (regular, floods, spots, multi-diode LEDs) I can give you my impressions on those if you're planning to use those instead of a vivarium specific lighting system.

I have two suggestions based on my experience so far:

1) For vining plants that grow up the background, I have had more success planting them directly into the substrate and letting them grow up than I have planting them into the integrated planters. I suspect they get better water/nutrients when plugged directly into the main system.

2) Be careful with objects collected outside and even with your plants - vivarium pests are annoying. NEHerps has a good article on plant processing. Those millipedes can get out of control, and though their impact is fairly negligible, they can chew up your climbing branches, which is annoying. I also suspect they contribute to faster breakdown of the substrate, as they seem to consume wood a lot faster than isopods. That said, vivarium keepers seem to be alarmist about pests. I have had (and killed off) mealybugs and slugs. I still have millipedes and some orchid snails, both of which I would like to get rid of but neither of which hurt the chameleon, they just lessen the lifespan of your setup a little bit. Supposedly giant orange isopods will attack and consume other inverts, I have a culture going now, once it starts booming they'll be getting deployed...

 

[Dbash44]

Looks good so far. I've done a couple similar builds, feel free to shoot me a DM if you want to discuss anything. I bought and tested several inexpensive light bulbs for their effectiveness growing plants in a tall vivarium (regular, floods, spots, multi-diode LEDs) I can give you my impressions on those if you're planning to use those instead of a vivarium specific lighting system.

I have two suggestions based on my experience so far:

1) For vining plants that grow up the background, I have had more success planting them directly into the substrate and letting them grow up than I have planting them into the integrated planters. I suspect they get better water/nutrients when plugged directly into the main system.

2) Be careful with objects collected outside and even with your plants - vivarium pests are annoying. NEHerps has a good article on plant processing. Those millipedes can get out of control, and though their impact is fairly negligible, they can chew up your climbing branches, which is annoying. I also suspect they contribute to faster breakdown of the substrate, as they seem to consume wood a lot faster than isopods. That said, vivarium keepers seem to be alarmist about pests. I have had (and killed off) mealybugs and slugs. I still have millipedes and some orchid snails, both of which I would like to get rid of but neither of which hurt the chameleon, they just lessen the lifespan of your setup a little bit. Supposedly giant orange isopods will attack and consume other inverts, I have a culture going now, once it starts booming they'll be getting deployed...

Thanks, Connor

Great job on your video, too, btw!

I ended up getting some creeping fig and plan to use that, vanilla bean orchid, ivy and some other climbing plants as wall cover. Going to plant those in the bottom. I plan to use the integrated planters for things such as cascading plants, if you will, such as pathos, purple passion plant and so on. Going to drill holes in some of the extra cork roads I have and mount the tillandsias and bromeliads to them. Got a bunch of trailing plants to use as ground cover along with the moss.

I bought all of my plants from a local nursery and home depot. I'm too worried to collect anything from outside. I've given the moss a good soaking in water a few times and got rid of the soil that it was growing in and replanted it. I also did this to get rid of pests. Found a clear earth worm today, at least that's what I found upon my google search. Took that sucker out because I'm still unsure if it's good or bad. I have a millepede that was in the substrate with the springtails when I bought them. Kept it in there for now. You can see a picture of that in the previous posts. I'll get rid of it now that you'd shed light on how annoying they are!


I don't believe the isopods I have are the orange ones. I bought the clown isopods, or montenegro isopods. They were like $40 for 10. I'm working on getting the colony going. They're in a smaller container right now and might be doing well. Seems like they're eating to me.

Thank you for your help! I'll check out the link you sent.

 

[AmandaS]

It’s a online game that your teacher sets up and it randomly put you in teams, there are questions of the teachers choice and you have 4 answers and your on on team with 3 other people. You can’t see the other peoples answers so you have to rely on them to get it right. If you get one wrong you go back to question 1 and the first team to 12 wins. I was waiting for Simba to get bit on the nose lol.

Nothing about bioactive..

I love playing quizlet with my students. It gets them all active and competitive. It is usually when I have the highest attention!

 

[Connorology]

Sounds like it's gonna be cool! Post some more pics when you have a chance.

 

[Dbash44]

Nothing about bioactive..

I love playing quizlet with my students. It gets them all active and competitive. It is usually when I have the highest attention!

Omg, that’s crazy! Robots are going to take over the world starting with

Sounds like it's gonna be cool! Post some more pics when you have a chance.

Will do. I’ll hit you up if I have any other questions. Sorry to hear about your graduation getting delayed btw. Meant to tell you yesterday.

 

[Dbash44]

 

[Dbash44]

 

[Dbash44]

 

[Ares05]

All of those are on a safe list?

 

[Dbash44]

Here’s all the plants I plan to use. I may not use all of them but some of them are so small I may be able to do it. Some of them need to be cleaned up since they didn’t do well in other enclosures. Have to figure out the best layout for them because I’ve had issues with plants below ones that grew large enough to block light.

 

[Dbash44]

All of those are on a safe list?

I believe most of them are. I have to check on the certain variations of some of them. I have other uses for some of them if not tho

 

[Ares05]

Yeah definitely check! Provided they are safe, very nice plant haul!

 

[Dbash44]

Yeah definitely check! Provided they are safe, very nice plant haul!

Thank you!

 

[Dbash44]

I think these pathos are both rooted and ready to go too ?

 

[Ares05]

Wait, is scindapsus safe?

 

[Dbash44]

Wait, is scindapsus safe?

It’s in the same family as pathos, right? People say the common pathos/devils ivy is toxic yet we still use it. That’s how I’ve justified using scindapsus in the past. Never had an issue with it, though, none of my chams eat plants so there’s that. Haha. That’s just my experience with it.

 

[Dbash44]

I’m getting close!
Applied some oil based paint to the sides to cover up the foam, used a glass scraper to clean up the lines and then moved the enclosure to where it’s going to live.

I’m using a Sansi 34w led spotlight in a Flukers 5.5” sun dome. I read that these bulbs make good basking spots for certain chams. We’ll see how it performs after heating up. Don’t have my UVB light on yet and it’s pretty lit up.

Also attached pics of the drainage tubing. Covered it with silicon and substrate to hide it. Same method as the foam.