Plants and growing media not included.
Contents:
1 x PLANTCUBE Vivarium 20x20x20 Biome
1x cover 20×20 (2x 50mm hole)
1 x pad 20×20
2 x Grid insert acrylic 50 mm – clear
2 x plugs for 27mm hole
2 x plugs for 10mm hole
1 x fixing pads for cover (4 pcs.)
Glass tank cube 20x20x20 cm with 2x side 27mm hole and 2x side 10mm hole
The 27mm hole (center point) is at 8,5 cm height.
Dimensions: 200 x 200 x 200 mm; 4mm glass thickness
Material: float glass
Side openings:
2x hole 27 mm
2x hole 10 mm
With our PLANTCUBE Vivariums you can design your own living piece of art for your living room. You can also keep small animals in a PLANTCUBE so there is no limit to your creativity.
Customize your PLANTCUBE to your own or your plants and animals needs:
The two 10mm holes on the side, located at 2cm height (center) from the bottom, are for draining excess water. For example, you can use our hose transparent 10/06 mm to drain the water. The two 27mm holes can be either closed via the included plugs or serve as additional ventilation when equipped with grid inserts. You could even connect two setups here via an acrylic tube. This way, if you keep animals inside your Vivarium, they can roam freely from one setup to another.
With our suitable frames, grid inserts or plugs, lamps and air conditioners, the Vivarium’s cover can be flexibly adapted. Our covers can be equipped via the two 50mm holes with plugs or grid inserts to achieve the desired humidity, or a stronger ventilation. Furthermore, lamp sockets, fans or foggers can also be plugged directly into the 50mm holes.
Our frames are only needed when keeping ants. They secure the Vivarium additionally (when coated with an escape prevention medium) to avoid the escape of the animals and simplify above all the maintenance in the open Vivarium. In addition, when using a frame, the cover can be kept off if desired.
How to turn your PLANTCUBE in a bioactive ecosystem?:
Create a drainage layer:
To support your plants you should build a drainage layer first inside your Vivarium. We recommend you to use 2-3 cm of clay granules (4-8mm) as they are light. Make sure to wash them under running water before putting them in to remove dust.
You can place a drainage fleece on top of the clay granules to separate the drainage from the substrate.
What plants and soil to use:
This all depends on the type of “Ecosystem” you want to create. If you want to build a desert or rather dry Vivarium you will need plants that thrive in that climate and use the appropriate soil that they like to grow in. For tropical Vivariums it is of course the same. Try to use Plants from similar regions and/ or climate so they will all do well in the same type of soil and climate. A good plant store should always have information about the matching climate and soil for the plants that they sell.
Important: If you want to keep plants and animals together, you should never use plants where you do not know whether they have come into contact with fertilizers or pesticides. Only use plants from terrarium stores or similar that are guaranteed to be completely free of pesticides and fertilizers. These can otherwise lead to the death of your animals.
Introduce a “Clean up crew” to make your Vivarium Bioactive
What is bioactive? This is the closest you get to a self sustaining setup. It is all about adding the appropriate soil mixture and organic material for microflora to form plus the necessary microfauna to create a nutrient cycle in your Vivarium.
Our tip: Always add small creatures like springtails and isopods. These are not only a good “never-ending” food source themselves, if you want to keep other animals in your Vivarium. They especially feed on molds that might form due to high humidity and enrich the soil with nutrients, which in turn allow the plants to grow healthily.
Add some charcoal in your soil which helps microbes to colonize it. Moss and cork bark or white rotten wood in addition to leaf litter do not only look natural in your setup, they also feed your “clean up crew”, provide hiding and breeding spots for them and are easy to break down into nutrients for your plants.
In nature everything is about balance
However, it is not advisable to use certain species of isopods without adding anything that hunts them, since an isopod population without predators such as ants, for example, likes to get out of hand and the plants in your Vivarium then quickly become an unwanted source of food. In nature everything is about balance.
Further information:
Note: Glass is cut according to DIN 1249 with a tolerance of +/- 1mm. For extremely small ant species, additional breakout protection is essential.
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