Really want to try live plants

I'm really wanting to try some live moss or something in my A. avic's new enclosure I'm working on. It's only a 5-gallon but I think I could do some fun things with it.
Here's a rather bad photo, and it's not done yet. [it's also my first enclosure, go easy on me!]


I'm wondering what I'd need for live plants.
Drainage layer? How high should the drainage layer be? [I'm guessing those little clay balls?]
Substrate? What kind?


These were the plants I was thinking of putting in. I'm not very experienced with plants, so I'm not sure which ones would be the best. I just want a little bit of live greenery, you know?
Sheet Moss
Live Moss
Gold Tips spikemoss
Krauss' Spikemoss
Creeping Jenny

Moss needs cool temps paired with ample light and lots of moisture. Something that Ts don't want on a sunny day. You could grow low-light plants though

If the plants you choose might have a hard time with the substrate you use in terrs, what you can do is pot the plants in the proper soil and bury the pot up to it's rim.

Match the environment to the animal, not the other way around. Establish the basic environment that suits the animals needs inclusive of soils and substrate then make a list of plants native to the animal, decide what will fit in the space available and will thrive in the environment. Try to avoid growing cacti on a glacier and populating the area with arboreal primates.

Pothos, very low care needed; fast growing, easy to propagate.

Ignore the misconception that tarantulas will not thrive in a high light environment. Tarantulas often come from very high light environments. Plants also often come from high light environments.. The difference between the plants and the tarantulas is the plants seek the light while the tarantulas seek shelter from the light. You can set up a very beautiful planted vivarium with high light and keep a tarantua in it. Tarantulas burrow and create hides for a reason

An example of a well planted vivarium with very high light that I build several years ago.. All of the moss and liverwort in this setup was collected from the deserts and high pine forests of Arizona.



Another misconception is that temperate species of moss and liverwort cannot tolerate warmer temps. This simply isn't true. There are also many very nice tropical mosses available for purchase from many great dart frog breeders. Here are some examples of temperate mosses that I have grown for dart frog vivs in the past. No cool temps, no dormant period.. these are mosses that I collected in Washington state... It gets cold there. What you see in these pictures is not freshly collected moss put in my vivs. This is all moss that was collected in small clumps and was grown for a long time in my vivs and spread naturally.. on it's own. All temperate species that are supposed to "not" survive in vivariums and warm conditions.

This is one one my favorite mosses to grow... Fissidens bryoides





The bright green clump behind this frog in the first picture is a very neat liverwort species from Washington state. The second picture is a temperate moss found in the forest.





Another couple strange moss found in the forest of Washington.







While it is true that some species just will not grow in a viv very well, there are MANY temperate species that grow very well in the viv. If you want to find out how they will do, buy some larger plastic containers and a good fluorescent light with 5000 to 6500 kelvin bulbs. put a layer of moist clay substrate down in the container, put a clump of the moss on the substrate and put the lid on. place the container under the light at about a foot away. You want to make sure the ambient temp of your room is not too warm. This will cause the containers to overheat under the lights and cook the moss. Wait a couple weeks to a month and see what the moss does. The key here is not allowing them to get too hot. When these species are used in a vivarium with ventilation, excessive heat is typically not too bad of a problem. My spider viv in the first pic above never got hot.. or even warm for that matter... and I was living in Phoenix Arizona at that time.

Here are examples of growing temperate mosses in containers under lights that I explained.







Heads up... Sometimes you get some die off with the moss when first put into the containers, but give it time. It recovers and startes to grow. Sometimes it takes a few weeks or a month. Be patient. When you set up your viv for a spider, just be sure you have good air flow and a good substrate. Regular misting will be needed at first. Once things start growing and taking hold, you won't have to mist as much. Good strong lighting will be important as well for good growth. Good luck.

Josh

Thanks for all the info Josh, very interesting to read!

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Daaang Josh, yeah that's some awesome stuff! What kind of sub do you use for most of those plants?, maybe I missed it somewhere.

Is that a spider plant I see lurking on the work table?

The Snark said:

Is that a spider plant I see lurking on the work table?

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No, it's a tillandsia. I never kept spider plants.

Todd, I used regular ol clay substrate from the forest. It seems to work much better

OK, that gives me some ideas thanks.

Beautiful mantella! M baroni or M madagascariensis?

Thanks for the inspirational pics! I really want to try this.

GSA8 said:

Beautiful mantella! M baroni or M madagascariensis?

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Thanks! I wish I still had them, but can't leave the country with stuff like this The frog in the pic was M. madagascariensis. I had a very large breeding group.

Lagomorphette, I am glad you got inspiration from my post. I hope to continue to inspire people with future posts

How do you keep the mosses clean?