in the three months that this terrarium has been planted it's gone from strength to strength
the inhabitants cubaris marina woodlice desmoxytes planata millipedes and a variety of springtails
have multiplied and are thriving in the vibrant bioactive ecosystem in this video i'm going to
talk you through what i've done in this time to help it thrive what i do differently if i
started again and i'll show you a close-up of the plants and inhabitants inside i'd like to
give a special shout out to adam and the team at microexotics who sent me the millipedes
wood lice springtails and their food i've linked their website and social pages in my description
so you can check them out here is a quick overview of how i made the terrarium i wanted
to use this large piece of cork bark as the main centerpiece and this was for a few reasons
unlike other woods cork bark is a great material that will last a long time in the humidity of a
terrarium i planted climbing plants around the base of the wood so they'd climb up and over
it creating a natural feeling most importantly inside and under the corl bark provides plenty
of hiding places for the inhabitants the substrate i made consisted of sphagnum moss
vermicast leftover substrate from another terrarium akadama and leaf litter
first i added a layer of leca then topped it with sphagnum moss which helps regulate moisture levels
and stops the substrate falling into the leca i then added the substrate and arranged it
on a gradient the large piece of cork bark was placed in the centre and i planted some
creeping plants on the left hand side with the aim of covering it creating a natural feeling
i added some ferns to the right hand side in the form of a lemon button fern and an asparagus fern
the asparagus fern isn't actually a fern though i dotted some peperomia cuttings at the front of the
cork bark as these particular plants have a vining habit that will just add to the natural feeling
i'm going for i then added the creatures the dwarf woodlice and the springtails were already in the
substrate so i only had to add the millipedes and the cubaris murina woodlice the millipedes
are slow and easy to film but the cubaris murina are fast and evasive so i couldn't really capture
them the terrarium is done now so i added some more leaf litter watered it in and drilled some
holes in the lid which is very important here's how it looked when the terrarium was finished
and here is how it looks today on october 12th three months later
keeping the inhabitants well fed is important i mean this terrarium was created specifically
for them so it would just be cruel to skimp on their food i'll drop them in a variety
of vegetable scraps and take them out before they go rotten which usually takes a few days
their favorite food seems to be the mushrooms mushrooms are like 97% water or something and
start to decompose very quickly usually within a day or so i add one in and it quickly gets covered
with wood lights and springtails i supplementary feed with powdered fish food for protein
and add small amounts of cuttlefish bone for calcium which helps develop a strong exoskeleton
i also add a sprinkling of micro exotic springtails food which everyone seems to love
check out how well the plants have grown i'm actually quite surprised by this
and i'm putting it down to the good quality substrate and the light that the terrarium gets
i've added some extra plants since i made the terrarium so here's a list of what's inside
what would i do differently probably not very much the inhabitants and plants inside
the bowl are doing so well and to be honest things have gone pretty much
perfectly other than a few fungus gnats but they're not too much of an issue
if they get out of hand i'll use the scarid fly nematode which will zap them in like a week
i suppose the only difficulties i'm having are taking photos of the plants and the bugs inside
but that's only because of the shape of the bowl and because the large piece of cork bark makes it
difficult to get inside but that's a my new issue and there are ways around that how do i use the
cube or cuboid-shaped glassware then taking photos would have been a lot easier but as i said it's a
minute problem and i'm really not so fast so this was a three month update i think it's crazy how
fast the plants have grown that the millipedes have had babies and the woodlice and springtails
have like doubled in numbers so i'm really pleased to see that i'll do my next update in a few months
and hopefully in that time the plants would have grown even more and the inhabitants would have
multiplied further if you enjoyed this video consider subscribing i upload new videos every
thursday and if you want to ask me a direct question leave it in the comment section below
email me or dm me on social media i would also like to personally invite you to join
my beginner friendly facebook discussion group it's called terrarium group and it's a fast
growing community full of active members i would be delighted if you could join us there all the
links are in the description below thank you very much for watching and i will see you next week