Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok,this subject is a bit off topic but i can think of anywhere else to place it where someone might know the answer.im currently keeping dwarf jacksons chameleons in a type of enclosure that most people keep reptiles in.i have been thinking of creating a natural planted vivarium with a waterfall and lots of live moss.my problem is what to do with the feces produced.natural enclosures are not easy to clean and i dont wish to remove live moss or plants as they become soiled.are there any animals or micro organisims that can be added to a vivarium that may clean up some of the waste? im sure dart frogs do not create much waste and the little that is created becomes fertilizer but in my case the waste resembles bird poop and is not very pretty to look at as it accumulates.again i appologise for posting this in here but like i said,noone knows natural vivarium displays better than you guys.thanks again.

There are plenty of things you can add to a viv to help with the excrement of the animals. Pill bugs, springtails, and others will all break down the material to some extent. However, I am a bit concerned that you would want to house Dwarf Jacksons in a realistic enclosure like this. As you mentioned, they are hard to keep clean. Also, would the enclosure be all glass? Dwarf Jacksons, like all other chams as you probably know, need good ventilation. So having a tank with screen sides for adequate ventilation, yet being able to contain the substrate and keep the moss alive, would be very difficult. As a side note, how long have you been working with the Dwarf Jacksons - have you been successful at breeding? I have been looking for someone with CB babies, so if you do start producing, please add me to the "list".

no i have not yet bred them but i just got my first female so thats the goal.as far as ventilation,well i intend on using fans for that.thanks for the advice on adding the insects,what about snails? would they also clean the waste?..or what about that powdered mix of microorganisms that youre supposed to add to composte to help it break down.can this be added to a vivarium in a safe way?i know little about springtails but i do know pill bugs,i dont know how usefull they would be in cleaning much of the waste due to their nature of hiding and feeding on decaying material under rocks.as far as i noticed my chameleons have not yet started lifting rocks to poop under them.although that would be a neat and usefull trick.i dont mind doing a little cleaning now and then but its the poops that wind up in inconvenient places that i am worried about.

Just set your spray bottle to the "stream" setting and spray the poop into the substrate. You won't have to look at it anymore and it's mixed in the substrate that much faster to be used as fertilizer.

thats a good idea,im going to use an automated misting system but a spray bottle for cleaning would work.so what about snails? if i added them to the vivarium,would they destroy my plants?or do they only clean dead stuff?

Hello there
Snails vill eat your plants, it would be mutch better if you use springtails or/and Trichorhina tomentosa sorry but i dont know the name in us