Bioactive

leedragon

Chameleon Enthusiast
I am thinking about making my female enclosre bioactive. I want to get rid off the build up or it gets in the bottom after a while a decrease risk of infection by water gatherings when it doesnt dry during the day.
I have not had bioacrtive before if not counting the brevicaudatus enclousure but those didnt have cleanup insects just soild and plants.

So my enclosure is an exoterra mesh screen 45x45x90, my idea is to get plexiglass or some other thing to makea frame or a square and glue it with a glue gun to hold on the soild.

My concerns:

my animals have iridovirus; So the insects and whatever its there will get the virus aswell. being a mesh screen the can get out.
- Has anyone done bioactive in mesh screen? have their clean up crew gotten out? did they survive outside the enclosure or build a colony or find somehwere there they didnt die?
- I live quite up north so the climate is pretty dry for most part, would this be enough or will this not affect run away insects any way?

Having a layer of bioactive coal.
-Coal naturaly contain heavy meatal, which in consumption can be harmfurl and kill the animal. I would plant branble and other things the feeder insects insects can eat but the plant would absorve the meatals and then the insects would absorve the metals and it would build up in the liver of the animal and eventually kill it;
-Has anyone run a bio active terrarium without coal?
- I had Ptychozzon Kuhli that I fed rollie pollies, all of them died before becoming adults. rollie pollies build up high amounts of heavy metals in their system. It may have been the the ones that I fed were picked up by the side of the road, along side grasshoppers aswell, road contain heavy metals and other nasty stuff. Insects that live near roads are not good to feed animals due the build up of those heavy meatals and such in their system.
-I will not be having rollie pollies as the clean up crew inscets du to this and the chameleon would eat them, but only do springtails.

Window screwn;
-We don´t have window screens over here to use to divide the drainage layer from the soild, right now I tought about using sphagnumoss as a substitute.
- Will this work, or does anyone else have any other idea to use as substitide for window screen?

Ventilations:
- Would a frame for putting the soild blocking the screen will make the air exchange insuficient? Can this make pockets where water, feces debris gather and create bacteria harmful for the animal? beacaue the bottom would not recive as much air as before? The front is mesh but the tops is kinda blocked due to the fixtures of the light and such.

Has anyone run bio active with jacksons?
 
Picture of my red phase female
 

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Have you heard of those clay balls for the drainage layer? That’s what I use for my crested geckos bioactive enclosure.
 
I keep bioactive in a screen enclosure and use fabric root pouches to hold everything. I do have a substrate tray below just in case there’s excess drainage. I use either clay balls or lava rock for my drainage layer and use landscape fabric to separate the layers. I don’t use a lot of charcoal, but do put some in. Having good drainage is essential or it can/will get nasty. Yes, I do have my isopods escape but they need moisture to survive so I’ll find their dried out little bodies here and there. Every now and then I’ll find one just walking down the hall. I keep a separate bin for those escapees since I do spray for bugs and don’t trust where they’ve been.
 
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