No, sorry, not that kind of armadillo, but rather Armadillium gestroi. They have been on my bucket list for a while now, and when a friend passed a decent pet store a couple of days ago he kindly brought me a starter group of about 15. I already had a terrarium set up for them, so in they went. They seem quite skittish for now, but are feeding and exploring the tank, so hopefully they'll calm down a bit.
Terrarium details
Standard 54l aquarium (60x30x30 cm), started with a thick layer of leaves and some springtails before summer and was then allowed "mature" (read ignored) until about a month ago when it got a bit of plants and hardscape. Lighting is by a couple of LED-sticks siliconed to the inside of the glass covers, they should provide just under 3000 lumen together, and helps heat the inside slightly during the day. Other than that there's no technology, I manually mist and water with RO-water every now and then, but that's it.
The substrate is a bit of a mix. The back and left hand side is mainly a pile of different dry leaves (oak, aspen, bracken, linden, etc), with a couple of eggshells tucked in for extra calcium, all now getting covered by plants. There's a patch of Sphagnum to the right, planted in an old ice-cream container so that it can be kept a bit wetter. The rest is wild-caught river sand (with a bit of gravel, silt and detritus); I have been monitoring how sedimentation in streams is affected by hydropeaking for work, and thought it would be a shame to just toss the stuff caught by the sediment traps once we had weighed it, so some of it went in here.
Plant list:
Terrarium details
Standard 54l aquarium (60x30x30 cm), started with a thick layer of leaves and some springtails before summer and was then allowed "mature" (read ignored) until about a month ago when it got a bit of plants and hardscape. Lighting is by a couple of LED-sticks siliconed to the inside of the glass covers, they should provide just under 3000 lumen together, and helps heat the inside slightly during the day. Other than that there's no technology, I manually mist and water with RO-water every now and then, but that's it.
The substrate is a bit of a mix. The back and left hand side is mainly a pile of different dry leaves (oak, aspen, bracken, linden, etc), with a couple of eggshells tucked in for extra calcium, all now getting covered by plants. There's a patch of Sphagnum to the right, planted in an old ice-cream container so that it can be kept a bit wetter. The rest is wild-caught river sand (with a bit of gravel, silt and detritus); I have been monitoring how sedimentation in streams is affected by hydropeaking for work, and thought it would be a shame to just toss the stuff caught by the sediment traps once we had weighed it, so some of it went in here.
Plant list:
- Ficus pumila - A personal favourite, and the idea here is for it to cover parts of the wood and the back pane completely, although I might be a bit sloppy with pruning so we'll see how much get covered in the end...
- Sphagnum sp. - Doing very well so far, probably helped by the bright light, will have to start pruning it pretty soon.
- Nepethes x Gaya, Drosera capensis, and Pinguicula sp. - Some carnivore cuttings that will hopefully do well, the biggest pitchers are stuffed with Sphagnum for now to prevent accidental suicides by the armadillos.
- Nephrolepis exaltata - Some kind of smaller cultivar, and just the one for now, but it should start producing offshoots pretty soon that can be moved around.
- Rotala rotundifolia - The messy "carpet" in the front, a gift from a colleague (working with other biologists is great) that adds a bit of colour.
- Selaginella sp. (possibly S. martensii) - Some hidden clumps here and there, should get a bit more visible eventually.
- Ludwigia palustris - just the one cutting growing among the Rotala for now, not sure what to do with it yet.
