Looking to create a cozy habitat for your adorable pets? Terrariums offer a fully planted, naturalistic environment perfect for your furry friends. Join me as I am going to put our lovely animals into their new homes and see how they thrive! If you’re curious about witnessing this exciting journey, make sure to stick around. Trust me, it’s going to be a blast! I collected some tropical plants from the nursery. So let’s get started because these animals are gonna love their future homes.
I’ve acquired two 12 by 12 by 18 Exotera terrariums. I love the quality of these terrariums plus I like that they’re front opening. I installed a cork wall as the background in one terrarium and in the second one, it’s an enclosure I used to keep my fantasticus in. It’s a custom cork spray foam cocoa silicone background that looks naturalistic and it’ll work just perfectly fine. So some of the things I’ll be using for this build are sticky tack. Trust me I know you’re like what? What do you need that for? I’ll explain. I have some cork tubes stuffed with sphagnum moss that are gonna provide our animals with wonderful naturalistic hides.
For substrate, I’m gonna be using the Zilla jungle mix. I like this product it’s very soft, it holds moisture well, the animals can dig in it, and plants grow really well in it. I’ve got some dried leaf litter which can help provide cover and food for the cleanup crew and just again help with the naturalistic aesthetic I’m going for. I have a whole bunch of vines that are gonna be used for the animals to climb on and maximize the usage of their tanks and finally a whole bunch of live plants. I have the arca palm which will for sure outgrow this tank but it looks nice for now. Now these terrariums are going to be getting manually misted and I can easily control how much water is going in which means that I don’t feel I need to add a drainage layer. I’m not worried about oversaturating my substrate.
These terrariums aren’t being watered enough that we need to have a separate location to hold excess water. Just a simple three to four-inch deep layer of substrate spread out evenly. That’s all it takes. So let’s turn these terrariums around and apply it where necessary. As far as reptiles go, snakes can be quite the escape artists. A lot of terrariums have back latches or openings to allow for electronics to run through the lid. Although the Exotera model has a nice locking switch to close that gap, it is possible that the snake could wedge itself in there and push its nose against the slider and we don’t want to risk that. So I’m gonna take some of this sticky tack, mash it up so it’s more moldable, and stuff it into those gaps to ensure that there’s no way those snakes are getting out of there. Sure, this might seem like major overkill, but do you really want to have to tear your whole reptile room apart? Or even worse, go further into your house looking for your pet snake that escaped? I didn’t think so.
With our two terrariums secured, it’s time to wash off our plants. Most pesticides will break down within a month or so regardless, but if you purchase plants you’re gonna use in a build ahead of time, keep them around for a few weeks, and rinse them off every few days, there’s really nothing to worry about. Just try and remove as much of the potting mix from the roots as possible before moving them into your terrarium. Now this is my favorite part. The first elements of life are going into our build. I’m trying to find a suitable location for this. I’m kind of putting aesthetic aside for this build. I just want there to be a dense amount of live foliage for these arboreal snakes to move through and find a sense of security in. With one of the China doll trees planted, I’m also beginning to find proper spots to insert the vines. Because they can’t all go in when there’s too much foliage, we’re gonna do it bit by bit. Add a plant here, add a vine there. I’m already so happy with how this is shaping up to look.
Now, although my rhino rat snakes don’t need basking lights per se, because that’s actually too hot for them, they do like to get up close to the lamp where it’s a little bit warmer. So taking advantage of the full height of the enclosure is important. So I’m keeping it in mind when I choose my plant and hardscape placement. Now I’m going to take one of those large cork hollows and place it far into the back corner of the terrarium where the snake can have a sense of security. Let’s go ahead now and take a bit of that loose dried sphagnum and feed it into the cork hollow. I’m gonna spray it down to moisten it up and place it far into the back of the terrarium building. A few more vines for climbing and perching and this terrarium is all ready for a snake. With our first build as an inspiration, it’s easy to set out the second one in a similar way. Sometimes I actually utilize pressure by pressing a long branch against the back of the tank and folding it into place against the front, we have a secure mounting. The last scaping element I wanted to put in here is some of that leaf litter.
I’m going to generously apply it all over the substrate as much as possible to really get that forest aesthetic I’m going for. Remember that these leaves will also break down over time, also with the help of our plants, and it’ll all help with the cycling of nutrition into the soil. Now I’m going to add some water to the soil and also spray down all the plants to give them a bit of an extra humidity boost as they acclimate to these new terrariums. Hey everybody, here’s the fun part, the moment of truth. I’m going to move the snakes into their new homes. I’m going to first start by removing water dishes and transferring them to the new terrariums. Now I’m going to add some tropical white springtails. These will quickly move into the soil and under the leaf litter and help regulate and consume mold and fungi that develop in our tank. Lastly, I’m adding some Porcellionides pruinosus, which are the powder blue or powder orange isopods. Isopods are great custodians for helping break down organic matter, so I’m actually going to use this culture to seed our two rhinoceros rat snake tanks. This is going to be the fun part. Honestly, they’re so small, being a bit like minimal blood drawn, but I think using the snake hooks also just going to help minimize stress, so I’m going to do a combination of handling and snake hook. I hope not to get bit too many times because it still sucks, even though they’re tiny. We’re just slowly going like this. And so far, so good. Nice and easy. Nothing too crazy. All right, there you have it, I want to take a moment to sincerely thank you for reading. For today’s question, I’d like to ask you all, what is your favorite part about building a naturalistic terrarium or vivarium for your specialty pets? Let me know in the comment section down below.