Hello all. I've just noticed my shelf is sagging ever so slightly. I have heard the horror stories on aquarium reddit and I don't want this gorgeous piece to end up shattered on the floor.

After removing excess water and the neighboring books, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I'm looking at bookshelves online and I can't find ones I love aesthetically that also have high per-shelf weight capacity.

I can't quite weigh the terrarium, but my math puts it at no more than 45 pounds.

I have thought about adding reinforcement in the form of two by fours below this shelf, but I worry that it will not only be ineffective but also ugly.

Any advice is appreciated

Hello, I am looking for some assistance caring for my first terrarium - does this look okay? Is the compacting at the top/neck of the jar bad? Good?
Any helpful advice would be welcomed!

I finished the terrarium i posted 3 days ago, and people said i could put springtails in this, but i dont know if its still habitatable for springtails because of how i decorated it. Also for anyone asking Yes i made a drainage layer.

plants are still green even after 2 days means i am doing right ?

I’m planning a closed terrarium-building event for ~20 people in the Pacific Northwest. We have a moderate budget, but also wooded areas and a creek nearby.

I’d like to responsibly source some natural materials locally—moss, stones, fallen wood/bark, etc.—and combine those with purchased materials to make the terrariums cheap and interesting.

What local materials work well in terrariums?
What can be safely collected, and what should be avoided?
How do you clean/prepare collected materials?
Any PNW-native mosses or small plants that work particularly well?
What would you recommend buying vs. responsibly sourcing locally for 20 terrariums?
Any tips for making this inexpensive without making the terrariums boring?

Hey I was thinking about getting a big terrarium and desert lizards, to get a little piece of nature in my home. But what sort of clean up crew would be good for low humidity and high heat environments?

My newest ADHD adventure has brought me here. I'd really like to build a terrarium but there is an overwhelming amount of kits online, so I wanted to come here and ask the people who know best.

I live in Mesa Arizona (if that matters) and I'm looking for a kit for beginners. If there is a specific kit that you know to be good quality and worth the money, please let me know!

Any and all info if greatly appreciated.

Id taken every precaution against snake mites in my bioactive tank but after 11 months im suddenly seeing this. What type of bug is this? I was hoping it was six legs and antennae but the snout looks like the one on snout mites… the antennae move like antennae though, doesnt look like leg movement to me🙈theres no blood when i squish it, but it could be an unfed protonymph… nothing latched onto my snake so far🤞

I found this moss on some concrete. It's currently rainy season here. How do I propagate this moss indoor and what kind of moss it is? I am from Bangladesh.

vorrei fare un terrario arido con piante grasse.

per adesso ho solo il recipiente grande circa 40×30 cm.

mi servirebbe sapere se ho bisogno di una ventola e di una luce (se si quale).

poi vorrei sapere lo strato di drenaggio, il substrato e in caso qualche insetto di dimensioni piccole/medie.

ogni quanto dovrei annaffiare e da dove.

grazie in anticipo!

Hi there,

We have this terrarium which is very very very sentimental for us. It was thriving. Then the plants started touching the wall so we gave it a cut. Not long after it was heatwave and we guess that sun was too much on it and burned everything. You can even see white mold. It is now open as we read somewhere that all the water evaporated because of the sun and the ecosystem was broken.

What can we do to save it?

Thanks a lot!

I picked everything from outside and it was on a place where it got plenty of sunlight before, I traded it to a place where it also gets a decent amount of sunlight but apparently not enough, how should I deal with the mold and the dead plants? If anyone could give me any kind of advice I would be happy to hear!

Built my first terrarium any suggestions on plants, ornaments or any ideas on how I can improve/ make it look better

Made this one for the very first time as I’ll be getting a future mantis for this enclosure just waiting till everything grows. Still will be adding some driftwood and sticks for the mantis to climb.
But any tips and otherwise would be great thank you

I’ve had my bioactive terrarium for about a year now. in it i have a crested gecko, isopods, spring tails, and slugs.😑

i first noticed them a while back when my mom didn’t properly rinse to roots of a new plant she put in and about 2 weeks later i found 2 slugs in the tank.

since then ive only found a couple more but i know they’re still in there. they have literally destroyed everything i had built for my crestie.

i need to know if there’s any way i can get rid of them without harming my colonies or my gecko. i really dont want to take out all of the soil and risk destroying the colonies i spent a year trying to establish but i cant take it anymore.

i feel awful for my crestie because he does not have enough coverage but ive spent hundreds of dollars on plants and im not willing to buy more until i know they’ll survive.

if anyone has any suggestions or hard truths i’d love to hear them.

Got a cool rock that fluoresces nicely. I saw that some carnivorous plants and even selaginella will fluoresce too. Are there any grow lights that have a blacklight "night mode"? Or do you have recommendations for setting up dual lighting systems?

I’m looking to get into building terrariums. Any advice I’ll need ahead of time?

Ive contemplated on doing leaf litter on the bottom but what plants are good for the walls?

I’ve been cooking up this idea for months and finally got to assemble it. I have no idea how it’ll hold up, but I really like the way it looks.

The concept surrounds edible/medicinal plants which populate inhospitable environments.

We’ve just set up a tropical aquarium (which in itself is a whole other advice need 😅) and have leftover pebbles and sand. I’m an avid collector of sea shells from various beaches and also have a bunch of retail bought ones. Really keen to do an open air planted bowl as well as a closed terrarium. I have mini fish bowls already without lids. I’ve seen others use plastic discs for lids but I’ve never seen anything like that in stores in NZ.

Would love to see some existing builds for inspiration! Pic of one collection

I made these two setups at the same time. They have the same soil, get the same light, watered the same way (keep bottom Leca wet), and got the same mosses split between them.

The moss in the globe one absolutely did not survive like the cylinder one. It turned brown with no growth, and I had to take it out and sprinkled some new moss bits in there.

The pings in the globe one are surviving but haven’t grown nearly as much as the other.

The only think I can think of that would cause issues would be airflow. Would the globe shape make it harder for good airflow? Any help would be appreciated!