maintenance

[ZLogic]

What kind of maintenance is involved with keeping a vivarium? Do you change out the substrate regularly?

[ZLogic]

Bump this. I'd like to know what kind of upkeep to expect before taking the time to build a vivarium.

[Fishies_in_Philly]

that's a tough one to answer. every viv is different. your maintenance level goes down with the more microfauna you have. also, depends on what animals, if any you are going to put in there. in a properly built, well draining viv, you should be able to go a couple years before changing substrates.

[ZLogic]

It's going to house 2 crested geckos. Any good links on introducing and establishing microfauna?

[Fishies_in_Philly]

It's not very difficult, grab yourself a couple cultures of springtails or isopods or both. Since your reptiles won't eat them, you can toss them in, they will reproduce in your viv. In a month or two you'll see them everywhere along to substrate. That was why i said it depends on animals. If you were going to house dart frogs, i would have recommended introducing the microfauna for at least a month before adding frogs.

As for links, there a lot of threads about microfauna on dendroboard and frogforum

[shiloh]

Originally Posted by ZLogic

What kind of maintenance is involved with keeping a vivarium? Do you change out the substrate regularly?

Outside of culturing with microfauna and adding leaf litter occasionally I don't do anything to the substrate.

All I do other than that is feed, mist, and wipe the glass occasionally.