I’m waiting on the arrival of two AP Arboreal cages. The measurements on the cages are 36Lx24Wx48H and 24Lx24Wx36H. Both will utilize sliding glass doors. I currently utilize a substrate mix of coco husk/sphagnam moss and I use springtails as cleanup crew (I know I’ll have to do most the cleaning without springtails). The thing is I absolutely hate bugs of any kind in my enclosures or home and when you keep humid substrates you’ll almost always tend to get flying insects etc. That being said I will try to not use any substrate in the new enclosures. Do any of you keep your high humidity arboreals in enclosures without substrate? Are you able to maintain proper humidity? I know that if you seal off most of the AP cage I might get the humidity levels I need but I understand that with a very sealed off cage air flow would be restricted quite a bit also. What you guys think?
I would think you could do it but keeping humidity would be tough!!! I kept atb’s over shredded newspaper in the past when I had atb’s. I think if you used a huge bowl of water it might work for you. My ap arboreal cage hold humidity quite well.
Not a snake keeper, but if you make some apple cidar vinegar traps you can easily kill any fungus gnats that arise from moist sub. I had that exact problem with my dart frog substrate but within a week with the traps no more gnats
I also made apple cider vinegar traps but I found just letting the top inch of soil or so dry for a few weeks kills all of them. If you have a large water dish in there then usually the humidity doesn’t drop too much. I had this problem in a crested gecko enclosure and a springtail colony and after a couple weeks I didn’t see any gnats. I believe that if you have enough springtails and isopods they’ll eat most of the eggs and larvae before they turn into gnats.
I’ve heard even plain unprinted newspaper has worked good for people for high humidity reptiles (crested geckos, gtp, atb, retics, etc). As long as you have some airflow it shouldn’t matter if you have most of the vents covered. I’m not familiar with AP cages but some of them have side vents that you could leave open and that would let most air flow through if you covered the top.
Thanks guys…I forgot the cage has a 20”x12” screen centered in the top so ventilation shouldn’t be an issue. I do think a large water bowl (I can get some large rectangular tubs) at the bottom should be enough…Plus cleanup would easy since its poop would land in the water. I’d of course have a clean water bowel up top for it to drink from at all times. If that don’t work for humidity I’ll try the newspaper idea.