Bioactive habitat questions!

[dahowlers]

I've been playing with the idea of making Leni a bioactive cage and doing some cursory research, but I can't seem to find any information on how tall the cage needs so be, or if/what kind of lid I need? So I guess my main three question are:

How tall do the sides have to be?
Does it need a lid? If yes, what kind of lid?
If I use acrylic sheeting to build the terrarium, what thickness should I use?

Thanks ya'll!

[Emc]

I don't have experience with bioactive hedgehog enclosures, but I have a bioactive setup for my Leopard Gecko (so, same arid set-up you would want for a hedgehog). For an arid set-up, especially beginner level, you're best bet for a successful clean-up crew would be Darkling Beetles & mealworms. Things like springtails prefer more humid environments, and you will struggle - unless you have deep substrate and a drainage layer - keeping them alive in an arid set-up, IMO. They just don't do very well in these types of set-ups.

Mealworms & their beetles don't need super deep substrate, as the beetles just stay on the surface. My Leo's substrate is about 8(?-ish)cm deep; so, not very deep at all - and it's been thriving as a bioactive since May '19. I would aim for eh, about a 10-12cm deep base - but leave a good 4cm minimum between the top of the substrate and the rim of the base, or your clean-up crew may possibly escape if you're enclosure is not a vivarium/terrarium style.

Lid isnt necessary; it's really the base depth that's most important.

Thickness of acrylic; Depends how sturdy you want it. I'd say 3mm minimum.

I've honestly always wondered how effective these bioactive hedgehog set-ups really are. Like, given how much waste a hedgehog is capable of producing paired with their incredible sense of smell & desire to destroy every insect they can find, I would have imagined you would need quite a massive enclosure paired with quite the number of clean-up crew for it to be truly functioning the way a bioactive is supposed to.

[dahowlers]

I think I'm going to aim for a more naturalistic set up for now. She's not happy with her current set up but bioactive probably isn't something within my reach for now. If I decide to do that eventually, at least she's the worst hunter I've ever seen.