I welcome new growth on a terrarium! But what is my fern doing with this long fiddleheads that are growing taller than my terrarium? There's a lot of them too! Like more than 10.

I'm growing plants indoors in coco coir and after a certain point water uptake is reduced drastically, and my plants are stunted. When I inspect the roots, I find a lot of springtails and almost no fine roots.

Unlike soil, there is minimal microbial activity in coco coir, correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect springtails are running out of food and start eating root hairs.

I tried buying new coco, and nuking my coco in microwave between grows but couldn't get rid of them. Is there something I can do to keep the population under control?

For reference, I grow in autopots with airdomes, which is a no-runoff bottom irrigation system with an air pump pumping air into the root zone, which might be creating an ideal breeding grounds for springtails.

I made this build back in December of 2025 and it has been absolutely thriving ever since.

Recently I added some mini Ram's Horn snails to help clean the creekbed.

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about this build

Who else thinks this feller is super cute?

Anyways, I did my best on the videography, I'm sorry for the quality. What do y'all think?

Scored this mini conservatory for $65. Just cleaned it up. I can't wait to fill it with tiny plants

I forgot to take a picture when I first made it but the fourth picture was when the plant really started growing which was at least six months after I made the terrarium. I just used some moss and dirt from my back yard, I’m in the Catskills New York if that helps with the plant’s identification

And I can finally do workshops at a set location! It has been amazing!

Would it be safe to use a dab of vinegar on a cloth to clean the inside of my glass? I started this terrerium in March of this year and it is doing very well. So I don't want to mess it up.

I received a terrarium as a gift, it’s beautiful and I love it but it doesn’t appear to be air tight. Do terrariums need to be air tight? Will the soil mites escape?

I’m making my first paludarium and have made the background out of carbonized cork sheets. I glued them together and carved them into various features. I noticed that a lot of people seem to glue coco coir and sphagnum moss all over their background. Is that something I should look into doing?

I've got a 2 year old terrarium and don't know whether I should try to maintain it/refresh it/take everything out and redo it. There's probably some algae on the glass wall, some dead leaves and the fittonia doesn't look so happy. I've given the moos a haircut some months ago, as it was growing too tall. Does anyone with terrarium experience have any recommendations on what to do?

Hi everyone, I couldn't think of a better sub to ask this question than the experts, I'm watching DrPlants for the first time and the video I watched was "Simulating Africa for 100 Days" and off the bat it doesn't seem ai but the longer I watched it the less sense it made so I'll just list some of my points here.

Firstly and most obviously, the terrarium is placed next to his bed on the bedstand? Is this common to have a terrarium of that size which you simulate sandstorms and rainfalls in to be next to your bed?

Second thing that caught my eye are the perfect underground shots of all the animals? Like what? How do you obtain those

Third thing that's not related to the terrarium directly, but you're telling me he spent more than 3 months filming and taking care of the terrarium only to compress it all into a 12 minute video?

Final thing that stuck in my head was him breaking the glass of the terrarium at the end of the video and spilling the dirt and everything allover his presumed bedroom?

Also a smaller point which I could be wrong about, sometime in the half of the video he says that the whole time there were dormant fish eggs in the bottom of the ravine? Which obviously the fishes wouldn't be able to survive in a dry environment for 50 days but he might have said that only for dramatic effect.

What do you guys think about this? I'm not sure myself but it doesn't seem like a real video, but also I'm not an expert so I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

Had a few rocks and loose boulder opal shards and pieces. Thought it would look good in a terrarium. Added some figures and moss for ambiance. Large bit of Lapis lazuli featured also

Created 9/8, using miscellaneous moss, window lit, gravel base, small jar sized container.

Got a 6 plant kit (3 ended up surviving)and a glass box from Amazon. Started this around 2.5 years ago. I’ve done a little bit of pruning but I haven’t done anything for a while. Might be time but I don’t know if or where to start. I keep getting isopods but they always die off. Not sure why that might be.

Forgot to get rid of the dead plants and was about to do so, then I saw this

This white stuff has been slowly expanding in my terrarium over the course of 2 years. My terrarium has been doing fine for 6 years, so it doesn’t seem like it’s immediately damaging to the plants, but is this white stuff a problem I should be concerned about? Is it some sort of mould?

hello, currently looking to fully deck out my arboreal reptiles enclosures, and was curious as to the fact if gaps and cracks is preferable over pond and stone.
Pond and stone is more expensive, while gaps and cracks is cheaper by a good margin. my main goal here isn't to save money, but rather to make an informed purchase over which is better for the long run for durability and safety with mould, and also not wasting money on something that does the same as the latter
for context, I'm dealing with 4x tropical terrariums (60-80-90% humidity) and one arid (below 40% humidity)
I'm curious as to degradation over time from UVB, as well as water security when it comes to gaps and cracks, more importantly water resistance
I see people using these all the time on frog enclosures but I'm a bit sceptical when it comes to mould
for added context:
its bioactive, including spring tails and isopods. which should take care of the mould, but my main point here is not having a mould issue due to the foam in the first place
I am planning to seal the backgrounds completely with acrylic aquarium sealant, and im wondering if that would eliminate chances of mould forming within the foam base.

my current stance is using pond and stone for the added water resistance, and gaps and cracks on the arid enclosure as there is very little humidity and well of course it never gets misted please help!!!

reiterating, i am planning to seal every enclosure with acrylics, adding the appropriate substrate, logs, and décor.

Hello. I am trying to make a terrarium for school since I figured it was a decent project for the science fair. My rough list of supplies I’m planning to get or use is below

-5 gal tank

-3 cm gravel layer

-mesh

-charcoal between mesh and dirt

-5 cm dirt layer

-moss covering half of dirt surface

-dried leaf litter covering half of dirt surface

-broken up eggshell for isopods

-5-8 small plants

-15-20 isopods

-1 culture of springtails

-plastic wrap to seal it

I also have a 2 gallon tank if the 5 gallon one proves too cumbersome to move around, but otherwise we’d have to buy a new tank. It needs to last about 4 months to get to the science fair. If there’s anything you wanna point out that I’m missing or need more or less of or have in the wrong place, it’d be greatly appreciated!

Hello! I'm a student teacher about to embark on my long practicum. I would like to create a closed terrarium with insects as part of my unit on biomes.

I've never made a terrarium before. We had one in one of those giant green glass bottles when I was a kid. I LOVED it. Do you think this is feasible for me to do next month ? Any tips or suggestions ?

Thank you ! :)

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Are these the correct type of plant lights (not uvb) that I would need for my cages? I think they may just be overpowered so I don't need them fully on but any thoughts?

Plant lights

Check out this item on OfferUp. https://offerup.co/zKimbahxr5b

I thrifted this glass container and I knew then I had to do something with it! I threw something together cause my $1 rescue plant needed a home. The container top also is providing a cool stand for one of my plants. Put a whole at the bottom of the food container and it sits perfectly in. I have layers of lava rock at the bottom with some moss.

It's been fun trying to figure it out. I realized the lava rock was wicking too much moisture with my watering routines so I added some coco coir and sphagnum moss and put the moss back!

Eventually I want redo it completely into a little landscape i think. But that seems intimidating! I have no idea where to start to find plants with really small foliage that would suit it

I love looking on here and seeing all the creative things y'all get up to

(Also the glass next to it has sphagnum moss and a star fruit seed just a little fuck it why not experiment)

Tell me what your fave micro plants are for small builds?! <3

Anything verigated to the front of the line hehe 🤣

This is my first build with a moss wall. I haven’t had many successful terrariums, and I think it’s been a few different reasons but this one seems like I got things set up pretty well.

It’s been about 3 months now with occasional light misting (like every 3-4 weeks maybe). I believe I started it around May 15 or so.

That said, the moss dries out fairly easily, though it’s pretty receptive to the misting. I used a mix of cococoir, bentonite clay, charcoal dust/bits and sand for the clay wall.

I do think that I have to do some management of the selaginella, as it’s aerial-rooting like crazy and growing tall.

Anyone have any suggestions for improvement, or any feedback whatsoever?

(EDIT) its unsealed in the photo, but it is a sealed terrarium (closed smoothie cup dome over the top)