today i'm going to be setting up a bioactive terrestrial enclosure for my tarantula so let's get started [Music] welcome to tarantula collective my name is richard and i got some rehousing to do my theraposa apophysis uh also known as the pinkfoot goliath bird eater has outgrown its enclosure and it's uh it's time to upgrade now currently it's in a small enclosure but it is bioactive it's it's outgrown it it's time to get it set up in something new but i've had a lot of people ask how i set up my bioactive enclosures and i got three or four different ways i do it so today i'm just going to show you one of the ways it doesn't mean it's the best way it's just how i'm doing this one and you can check my past videos or future videos and see other methods that i use now not all tarantulas need bioactive enclosures it's mainly just your more moisture dependent species therafosa is one genus that is moisture dependent and it seems the larger they get like the older they get the more important it is to have that moisture so that genus in particular i really prefer to keep it in bioactive enclosures so let's get to work get this set up and get this tarantula re-homed now for the most part i have everything that i need right here i'm gonna be using this uh tarantula cribs enclosure that they sent to me for christmas i'm pretty excited about that it's uh it's a terrestrial enclosure has this nice locking lid it's like a magnetic i don't know there's one two three four magnets strong magnets that will lock that into place so we're gonna be using this as the enclosure well almost dropped it and for the false bottom of the enclosure i'll be using this zoom med laboratories waterfall kit it's what i didn't use they sent me a whole bunch of stuff when i set up the bioactive paludarium for my carabiner versacolor i used the waterfall feature in the enclosure but it's a paludarium so the bottom of the enclosure is just a water feature that fish are swimming in so i didn't need a false bottom but i'm gonna use that for this enclosure so the first step is gonna be cutting this screen to fit the enclosure and how i'm gonna do that is i'm just going to set the enclosure on top of the screen kind of trace it out and cut out the rectangle pretty easy [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so we got that done we're just going to make sure that it fits nicely yeah i think that'll work that'll work nice now the first layer in a bioactive enclosure kind of needs to be the false bottom and in this case i'll be using hydro balls but i've seen people use like plastic crating there's there's all kind of different things you can use but i have these hydra balls so that's what we're going to use today and it doesn't need to be really deep i'm probably just going to do like a half an inch to an inch of hydra balls in this enclosure because this tarantula really likes to burrow so i'll make sure i give it plenty of depth and substrate [Music] substrate [Music] i put a little too much in there first so i cut it back a little bit but i think this is gonna look nice so next step is we will uh throw in this screen what this does is keep the substrate separate from the hydro ball so the water can drain through the substrate get down there and then kind of like evaporate and go back up it just keeps the substrate damp or you know plenty of moisture in it without just sitting in water where it would start to rot and just get nasty now i just need to add some substrate i'm going to be using jungle mix today it's one of my favorite substrates but you know you can use pretty much any substrate really except for cocoa fiber i wouldn't suggest that but creature soil or jungle mix there's what's the other one rectus soil something like that there's all kinds of substrates out there that's kind of a mixture of a bunch of stuff that would be beneficial justice frogs has some great bioactive substrates you can get some from the bio dude and some bioactive substrates don't require a false bottom if i was using the biodudes tara arena or whatever it's called their tarantula substrate i would not be using a false bottom but because i'm not using that i i'm going to be using some of this jungle mix i went ahead and opted for that false bottom but what i will do is mix a bunch of sphagnum moss in with the jungle mix and i'll just kind of help it maintain some of its moisture [Music] now that i've got the sphagnum moss mixed in there i'm going to wet it down some and i didn't fill the enclosure up as high as i normally would with substrate because i'm going to take some of the substrate from its uh current enclosure and mix it in there as well since it's been living in this bioactive enclosure there's a whole lot of microorganisms and you know this the soil itself the substrate itself has really kind of developed its own little ecosystem so i want to make sure all those little microorganisms i can transplant into this enclosure as well of course there's also springtails and small little dwarf isopods and stuff like that that i probably want to carry over to this enclosure too and now we're going to transfer these plants over in here so i'm just going to set up exactly where i want to hide and things like that and move the plants over and i mean it wouldn't be a tarantula collective enclosure without a skull this one's for you petco so now i need to get into the old enclosure pull out the plants and move some of that substitute into the new enclosure now this is a theraposa species like i said it's a goliath pink foot bird eater which has some pretty serious urticating hairs now it's not necessary that you always wear gloves or long sleeves or glasses whenever you're interacting with a theraposa but it's not a bad idea what i'm going to be using are these massive rubber gloves it's a little bit of an overkill especially for just the juvenile species but i got to do what i got to do but these are nice because they cover my entire arm so even if it kicks some hair at me or i mix them up and throw them up in the air i don't have to worry about it like getting on my forearms which i enjoy because i've been haired by this species before and it is not fun very itchy drives me crazy all right got the gloves on now just for safety's sake put on some glasses but these glasses are really dirty and the only reason to wear glasses i actually got an email from someone not long ago that uh la ciadora perry abana had kicked some hairs up gotten her boyfriend's face and they were afraid some of them got in the eyes so you know it's it's always better to be safe than sorry i you know i don't think that this trash is gonna be kicking hairs at my face so i'm i'm not gonna wear them but i just wanted to show you that sometimes you may want to consider doing it especially with the theraphosa species all right that plant was pretty well rooted but i really like it so i'm gonna move it over here [Music] all right so we got the plants out of there now it's time to move the tarantula so hopefully this goes smoothly because i just destroyed its old enclosure and i'm sure it's not very happy it's always amazing how big these tarantulas get i think they're one size and they end up being almost twice as big as i anticipated and i moved some of the substrate from its old enclosure into its new enclosure uh not a whole lot maybe just like a handful or so but i can see that a lot of springtails have transferred from that enclosure into this one but just to be safe i'm going to add a little bit more something i like to put in my bioactive enclosures any time that i'm putting springtails in there is it's the uh kook cuisine it's this cleanup crew cuisine who's incusing from the josh's frogs essentially it gets damp and kind of grows some mold plenty of food for your isopods or mainly your springtails i'm just going to throw one of those down in there and now we're going to water the plants a little bit [Music] yeah baby wonder if all my bad decisions get accounted in the algorithms no statistician could dissuade me from my bigger vision i know my occupation's quite an unlikely place in this world to occupy and talk about upon a daily basis our information is predetermined by some biased business we island sermon the silicon that push our lovely neighbors i'm done with paper chasing think i'm on the bigger banquets miss that full circle new wave energy on a tuesday turn a blue day to a bright you yellow with a smoothie in here extra fruit hey the brand you can't move me [Music] if i know one thing the truth is home even if it's a tough thing to swallow an even harder thing to hold and truly know without a doubt while on the globe even though all right and that's pretty much it i want to say thanks to tarantula cribs for sending me out this awesome enclosure and the skull and hide pretty much everything else i used awesome christmas present if you want to see more videos on my bioactive enclosures just check out this playlist right here and if you want to catch up on all my other enclosure builds or do-it-yourself projects check out this playlist right here as always i appreciate you watching subscribe if you want to see more thanks for buying tarantula collective merchandise and i will see you next tuesday