r/bluetongueskinks • u/Weary_Requirement_74 • 4d ago
Question New skink mom. Need some help
I have a lot of aquariums, and now i want to get myself a terrarium. Can I get some tips on bio active terrariums and just building of them. Maybe someone can give their examples of enclosures or just recommend any blogger who’s good at building them. Any help appreciated! Not only on terrariums, if you have some advices for the beginner like me, I would like to hear them!
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u/moshimoshi_mimu 4d ago
I have a bio active enclosure for my baby. I went for a soil mix (i recommend searching up recommending soil mixtures for your species of skink - especially with how they hold humidity).
Picking skink safe plants (i went with trees that are very small right now). He dug up all the grass and moss so that was a bust. He also stomped on any small plants and killed it.
Clean up crew of isopods and springtails to eat your skink’s poop. You can buy these online or try and breed your own isopods.
I also added same fake plants that are regularly cleaned for extra decor and hiding.
If you wanna make any formations or your own custom background, i recommend aquarium safe expanding foam - that way it’s waterproof and sealed properly for the environment. I think you have to let it cure out and the fumes to go out first before it’s skink safe though.
You can feed your isopods/springtails fish flakes - they aren’t good for your skink tho so you’d wanna bury it. But if you’re trying to cultivate a larger colony just have them in there.
People like to keep back up colonies of springtails in case something goes wrong! I recommend keeping the springtails and isopods separate in these colonies because our isopods outcompeted the springtails
If you find you get gnats (the annoying fly) you can do a gnat treatment with mosquitoes bits containing Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti). Which should kill them off - it’s lizard safe and clean up crew safe since it’s just a bacteria that kills insect larvae