# My First Planted Vivarium!



## HforHERP (Feb 12, 2013)

Wow! I've honestly had so much fun doing this  When I get some money I'm definitely going to be creating a vivarium for some darts of some kind, so I can have a go at an arboreal set up :2thumb: annnnnnnnyway.

This is a tank for my two adult Tiger salamanders. It's a 60x45x30 cm exo terra I tried to cater to there needs by burying all the hides, and having a large but shallow water area. I used hydro balls as a drainage layer because I have the construction skills of a 9 year old so would probably fail at using those egg crate things :lol2:

Ok so once I had laid down the gravel, hydro balls and jungle earth, I could finally start arranging things and came up with this.










Everything in here, apart from the plant pot I guess, is natural. The little hut looking thing that resembles a habba hut is actually some bark out my garden :lol2: The two rocks covered in moss are from my 
pond and will serve as a way in and out of the little pond in my tank. The plant you can see in the back is a Creeping Fig (ficus Pumilla), which I hope will cover most of the back area. Maybe even up the wall, which I doubt.

The log is also one I salvaged from my garden, which was meant to act as the main centre piece of the set up :lol2:

Ok next I went looting in my local forest to get some more moss, and found plenty of what I believe to be Mountain Moss, not sure on the scientific name but oh well. I managed to get a piece with some nice looking little plant in it too, which is a bonus I guess. I also found some other smaller pieces of moss, which i placed in little clumps and hopefully will take off. Also added some dead leaves for the little insects to enjoy. Will be adding more later.

* Question: To plant moss do I literally just place it on to of the substrate/log, and leave it to root? Keeping it nice a moist obviously. No salamanders will be in here a while because I want to get the moss attached and living first  *

Forgot to mention, so far I have only added in a few earthworms to keep the soil aerated. I'm thinking the best things to put in here as far as clean up crew would be European Woodlice, because of temperature reasons. * Would tropical woodlice/sprintails survive at temps of around 20c? * If anyone could find a European woodlice culture that'd be great, having trouble finding some.

Anyway, pictures.
































































By the way, look at that stuff sprouting out of the moss... interesting too see what that is :2thumb: and whether it'll be problamatic :whistling2:

Next step is some java moss for the water/borderlines of the water.

Thanks and any feedback is very welcome!

Lee


----------



## ronnyjodes (Apr 29, 2011)

Native moss can be a pain in the arse as sometimes it will just peg it and turn brown straight away, in some of my setups it stayed green and fresh looking for months and then suddenly went crusty and horrible. Give it good lighting, keep it moist and you should be ok. The good thing about it and how you've positioned it though is that if it does die out you can easily replace it.

It looks very nice though, I'm so used to heavily planted tropical setups that it's refreshing to see something a bit different although I do have somewhat of a personal vendetta against Exo Terra backgrounds :lol2:. How about adding a couple of mini boston ferns to the more open bits to add some more interest? They'll add something else planty to look at, aren't too hard to keep alive and won't make your setup look too much like an overgrown jungle.

As for spings I keep all my dart setups at room temperature and my tropical springtail populations are massive. If you get some in make sure there's plenty of leaf litter and maybe some rotting bark mixed in with your substrate or on top as they'll feed off this and congregate in these areas (which is a useful tip if you get darts as these areas will act as feeding stations  ). Dwarf tropical woodlice would be happy in there if you're struggling to get Europeans. All I did to get my Euro woodlice culture going was take some from the garden as I know there are no pesticides or anything in there to cause any grief. They're slow to get going breeding though so culture them outside the viv in an ice cream tub and then add them as your sals will probably pick off the bigger ones they find.


----------



## HforHERP (Feb 12, 2013)

ronnyjodes said:


> Native moss can be a pain in the arse as sometimes it will just peg it and turn brown straight away, in some of my setups it stayed green and fresh looking for months and then suddenly went crusty and horrible. Give it good lighting, keep it moist and you should be ok. The good thing about it and how you've positioned it though is that if it does die out you can easily replace it.
> 
> It looks very nice though, I'm so used to heavily planted tropical setups that it's refreshing to see something a bit different although I do have somewhat of a personal vendetta against Exo Terra backgrounds :lol2:. How about adding a couple of mini boston ferns to the more open bits to add some more interest? They'll add something else planty to look at, aren't too hard to keep alive and won't make your setup look too much like an overgrown jungle.
> 
> As for spings I keep all my dart setups at room temperature and my tropical springtail populations are massive. If you get some in make sure there's plenty of leaf litter and maybe some rotting bark mixed in with your substrate or on top as they'll feed off this and congregate in these areas (which is a useful tip if you get darts as these areas will act as feeding stations  ). Dwarf tropical woodlice would be happy in there if you're struggling to get Europeans. All I did to get my Euro woodlice culture going was take some from the garden as I know there are no pesticides or anything in there to cause any grief. They're slow to get going breeding though so culture them outside the viv in an ice cream tub and then add them as your sals will probably pick off the bigger ones they find.


Yeah, i've heard that taking moss and replanting it an be quite troublesome, I just didn't want to buy any atleast until I had tried. If it does die I have a near infinite supply 5 minutes away anyway :lol2:

My original idea was to cover the open areas in leaf litter for the springtails and such. Im going to have a look at these boston ferns, but already the ground space isn't actually that much, and my sals are really active so they need some space. Should have got a bigger viv :lol2:

Ah, thanks for the info about springtails, I honestly had no clue about temps. I assumed they would need some heat because they are "tropical", but thanks for clearing that up!


----------



## Gaz_dbd (Apr 30, 2009)

Looking really good that mate!! 

To this day I have never had any success with moss, bought or collected!!

With the Springs you should have no problem, I have a load in with my stick insects which remain at room temp. You might have a problem with the woodlice, Dartfrog do Europeans but are out of stock at the moment


----------



## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

If you have a safe area for moss, you will find European woodlice there too. I echo RJ, though- I introduce the tropical ones to all of my tanks and they do fine, although they probably breed more slowly under those conditions. I'm a big believer in making the system as varied as possible, though, so I routinely introduce native and tropical species in the same tanks. If you think about it, though, although your tank will be kept cool for salamanders, it will still be warmer than the outdoors through the winter.


----------



## HforHERP (Feb 12, 2013)

Ron Magpie said:


> If you have a safe area for moss, you will find European woodlice there too. I echo RJ, though- I introduce the tropical ones to all of my tanks and they do fine, although they probably breed more slowly under those conditions. I'm a big believer in making the system as varied as possible, though, so I routinely introduce native and tropical species in the same tanks. If you think about it, though, although your tank will be kept cool for salamanders, it will still be warmer than the outdoors through the winter.


Ive just ordered a culture of springtails, and will going out on saturday to collect a whole bunch of woodlice. I think the idea of looking into the tank and just seeing a casual woodlouse is kinda cool actually haha :lol2:

Will have so many little cleaners that it'll be the cleanest viv going :2thumb:


----------



## Heart4Darts (Oct 10, 2009)

Them things you got sprouting in your moss are totally fine, it'll produce these eventually, i've had some sprouting in my setup.
that same moss i have growing in my setup and its thriving, had it in mine for about 2 weeks now and it's grown a fair amount and is spreading.


----------

