Substrate or...? (Shedding issues)

Oh yeah, I read somewhere that truck with “soaking” the cresties and it will help with the shed but I was afraid to do that since she’s almost done.

If I were to start doing bioactive plants, what would y’all suggest? I’m not very great at gardening…so hopefully they just kind of supply themselves. :joy:

The UV light is 5.0 25W bulbs. I don’t remember the brand, but it was suggested by Pangea.

Pothos and spider plants are easy. Begonia, fittonia, African violets. There’s so many! :blush:

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Awesome! Thanks!

Would I need to change the types of bulbs that I use?

Ah, so…I just googled plants that are ideal for vivariums! It is cool to see all the options available. Obviously, this will take some planning considering what those specific plants need.

Now I’m excited to see what kind of cool stuff I can come up with layering everything!

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Please don’t soak your Crestie. Just a humid tub like so should do the trick (keep our of sun and make sure there are air holes)

I was never a great gardener. The cleanup crew (isopods) help plants grow which makes it super easy, just need to chop the plants back once a year - dependant on plant.

I think 25w is far too strong. I use Arcadia jungle uv ShadeDweller 7% ProT5. It’s 17% UV-A, 7% UV-B & 8w lamp. I have ones with higher watt as they cover several of my bigger enclosures. These are used for my Cresties but work for the plants also. I believe you should be able to get lower watt bulbs.

If you are interested in bio-active I have a made reptile care page on my website with what I did for my bio-active enclosures, including plants I use (I will add the link at the bottom). But ask any questions. I definitely recommend bio-active

foxreptiles

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Awesome! Thank you! I’ll look into switching up the bulbs and see if that helps them out as well.

The bioactive won’t happen for a little while. My husband would kill me if I just dropped another $100+ on these guys lol

I’ll slowly work on making everything bioactive!

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And thank you for the link! Very informative!

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For springtails you could easily make a colony, wait a month or two and then seed all the enclosures at once.

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Glad you found it useful. If you need anything else just ask :grin:

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Will do! Thank you!!

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Just want to briefly add that deficiency in vitamin A specifically can cause trouble with shedding.

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If what you are using to measure humidity and temperature in there are just little stick on gauges, then you can’t truly know either of them. Stick on gauges like those are pretty useless. You need digital gauges with probes.

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Really? I’ve never had any issues with my hydrometers (used exo Terra for several years) etc and I use a thermo gun thing to doubly check esp as I don’t have them in every enclosure.

Maybe I was just lucky lol

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I don’t even use them!
I did when I first ever got Kaneki, but then I just got so used misting and knowing how the viv looked I stopped using them as last time I checked out of curiosity with one the humidity in the vivs was perfect.

And the fact I know this by looking is weird… And I need to get out more… :joy:

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I’m the same, my first few enclosures have them, but I stopped buying them as I knew but the look, but I was more concerned with heat add they live in my conservatory and can get a little cold or hot depending on the time of year.

I still check though as I worry about everything

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