# My Bioactive Enclosure



## azzmilan (Jun 5, 2018)

I apologise for the late , late reply Scutellatus


I debated whether to post this as I wasn’t really confident in what I have done but I thought I would post this regardless if anything to show people where I have gone wrong as well as right. I do apologise for how rushed this might be, I like many people have a pretty busy schedule.

This set up is based on Serpia Design(https://www.youtube.com/user/SerpaDesign) who has done many more high quality enclosures than I ever have.

This is where you need to learn as much about your animal as possible in it’s behaviour, where it occurs in the wild and the type of environment it occupies.For my Southern Angle Headed Dragon, I looked up various materials such as _Keeping and Breeding Australian Lizards – Michael Swan ._ I have not included a big branch in the middle of the enclosure as when he previously had it, he would never use it and I believe this is because he learnt to associated me at the very least as a non-negative stimuli.

I used expanding foam with pots placed on top. I would then carve this after it cued to allow to be smoothed. I then used silicone to be used as a glue but in the future my builds would be used with a clear form or as a black as the white stands out too much through the substrate.




I then cover this in a mix of cocopeat and peat moss with some horticultural charcoal .






 

The false bottom consists of a tube that is glued down to the bottom (this is not pictured) but it has a hole in at the bottom to ensure water can flow in and through it. When removing waste water from the enclosure this is used as I can put an aquarium siphon through the tube removing excess water without tearing the enclosure open.

I then used horticultural charcoal at the bottom of the enclosure to purify the water at the bottom then placed a weed matt on top of that before placing more charcoal on top of that. The weed mat is important because otherwise something that does not allow drainage would only cause the water to sit on top with your substrate making it foul.






 
I then put in some isopods and spring tails in the terrarium whose job was to consume decaying matter and clean up the enclosure. I placed the substrate on top which is a mix of sand,cocopeat ,sphagnum moss, charcoal and leaf litter that I have previously kept.

Finally the scaping could proceed and this is commonly the most fun part as you can decorate this how you see fit. Some of the pictures below should depict what I chose and how I put it there. I do realise many of these plants would not occur in his wild environment however I chose some plants that are more hardy to allow them to survive in my enclosure for a longer period and have previously used more natives to a variety levels of success (mainly very little).












 
 
 
*Notes*

Isopods & Springtails

There are sites that sell these around Australia (http://www.arcadia-aust.com.au/~345) but if your going to get them from your backyard check if there has been any use of insecticide ,herbicide or any other poisons in your backyard in the last 2 years. Then keep these little guys in an area for a few months before introduction into your lizards enclosure.

Plants
I grow most of my plants off separately in my backyard and even have grown my own moss in little terrariums that sit on my windowsill. This way I can ensure there are no poisons on the plants as they have been in my own backyard.

Lizard
I have at times really decorated my enclosure in much more elaborate ways, my little guy is a climber and will destroy something of the items in there.


I am currently on the lookout for an aquarium about my size that I am going to convert to a vertical terrarium for which will be the last and final enclosure the little guy gets to have . I am just being patient since his only little and at the moment this does fit his requirements.


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## MANNING (Jun 5, 2018)

Awesome setup. This would definitely make viewing more pleasurable.

Just a heads up, I think your pictures ( are they loaded in an album? ) aren't set to be viewed by either members or everyone. While the thumbnail shows in the post, they cannot be enlarged. Should be able to be changed in that albums gallery


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## Prof_Moreliarty (Jun 5, 2018)

nice work mate!! check out ants canada on youtube he has some mad self sustaining paludarium's with fish/crayfish and obviously ants a bit different from reptiles but may give some inspiration. i often dream of having similars setup's myself


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## Mick666 (Jun 8, 2018)

that looks amazing, nice job.


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## Ella C (Jul 26, 2018)

That's amazing! I love Serpa design's videos and have made 2 vivariums based off them. Yours is fantastic! The spray-foam backrgound turned out so good.


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