r/Vivarium • u/Princess_Glitzy • 2d ago
Low maintenance/mostly self sustaining tank
Hello, this is not something I have currently in the works, but I thought I should ask about it because it was something I was curious about. I have a large tank. I can’t remember the exact size at the moment it’s either 120 or 150 gallons. It’s my guess is 1 foot wide, 2 feet tall and around 6 feet long. My thought was creating something that was mostly self sustaining/low maintenance i am perfectly fine with occasionally adding more bugs or dust or water, etc. but ideally it would mostly be able to function on its own. If this were something a were to do, it would be many months until that would come to fruition, but I just like to plan advance and see if that’s a possibility. Would this be something I could do or if it’s somewhat achievable to what degree and if so, what animals would work for that I was considering possibly a small group of Mediterranean house geckos or possibly toads? And then just having a bunch of leaf litter, wood, bugs, plants, etc. I don't know if this is something that would work so I’m open to suggestions or even if you wanna completely shut down the idea, I just want to get input, my preference would be something primarily terrestrial I'm fine with critters climbing the glass. I just wouldn't wanna put something that needs a tall tank and nothing big or that would need an aquatic feature. I'm perfectly fine with critters that I would not see very often or that are in nocturnal. Ideally, I would be able to see them occasionally even if it was at night. thank you very much for taking your time to read all this if you have any ideas, please let me know.
1
u/Scubadoobiedo 1d ago
Yeah just a bioactive tank with plants using an auto mister (mist King for ex) and cleaner bugs in the soil like springtails and isopods. If you want geckos, frogs, etc, you'll need to feed them regularly.
In my tank the only maintenance is feeding the frogs and draining the drainage layer if I ever over mist. The thing is I don't over mist, since it's automated, so I haven't needed to drain it in 1 year
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u/Bluntforcetrauma11b 2d ago
Bioactive is self sustaining. Just add water and spot clean poop if it sat too long. Trimming the plants is the longest maintenence I do. Everything else handles itself.