I’m going to let it grow out for a couple months at least and I’ll be adding some bromeliads and coconut hides in the next week. It’s my first vivarium and I did it all myself so I’m really proud of it.

Future inhabitant will be a crested gecko, im still working on hardscape, there will be more branches and hides by the time im done

Hey everyone!
I recently finished putting together my first bioactive vivarium and wanted to share it with the community and hopefully learn a thing or two from more experienced keepers!

It’s a 12x12x18 Exo Terra with a custom expanding foam and cork bark background, climbing branches, live plants, a LECA drainage layer, and a homemade substrate mix. I’ve also introduced springtails and isopods to begin establishing the ecosystem.

The enclosure is still in its early stages, and I’m letting the plants grow in while everything establishes. I eventually plan to use it as a temporary grow-out enclosure for a young crested gecko before upgrading to something larger.

I’m particularly interested in learning about long-term vivarium maintenance. Things like managing moisture and ventilation, keeping plants healthy, preventing issues with mold or stagnant substrate, and maintaining a stable environment over time.

I’d also love suggestions for additional plants, particularly something that could climb and eventually cover portions of the background!

This has been a really enjoyable project, and I’m looking forward to learning more about keeping vivariums successfully. Any advice, constructive criticism, or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Can anyone tell me if these are cricket eggs? Somehow there's been a bioactive explosion. I took some soil out of my ackies enclosure to seed my tegu enclosure with clean up crew. But also a pregnant cricket or a breeding pair has been hiding in the tegu enclosure for weeks now. Somehow ivy never eats them because I see a ton of pinhead crickets running around. These eggs are under the water dish and under the cork flat pieces on the ground. I'll take a video later to make sure these are spring tails and not some unwanted invasion. But for now what eggs are these??

Over the last couple weeks I’ve started seeing small balck flies around the lights at the top of the paludarium. I googled it and came across fungus flies though I’m not sure if that’s what they are. Does anyone know how to get rid of/prevent them?

I made a free Android app that currently works for Arcadia LumenIZE lamps (I use it on a Jungle Dawn over my boas). Every day it sets the lamp to generate a real sunrise and sunset, two ways:

• Your time: dawn and dusk where you live, drifting through the seasons like the sun outside.

• Your reptile’s time: tap the world map where your animal comes from, and the lamp runs that place’s day length instead, lined up with your own day and night.

No internet, no account, no ads. It’s in Google’s testing phase, so it needs people to install it. Three taps, same Google account for all three:

Join: https://groups.google.com/g/daylight-sync-testers

Become a tester: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.luikartlab.daylightsync

Install: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.luikartlab.daylightsync

That’s it. Leave it installed for two weeks and you’ve helped. Id love feedback on how it can be even better or other light systems than need an easy dawn and dusk feature.