Vivarium Crisis..Help

Hello all, I had set up a tropical vivarium for some H. Spinifers I was planning on ordering this weekend. I had the vivarium set up for about a week or so now and it had looked pretty good. I had posted pictures on the Introduce yourself thread: https://scorpionforum.darkbb.com/introduce-yourself-f2/hello-all-t5081.htm

I was just setting up the shelving unit to house the vivariums etc and noticed that the wood I used in there had a lot of white mold on it. This sprouted up in less than a weeks time.

When setting up the vivarium, I baked all of the wood by preheating the oven at 350 and then baking everything for 35-40 minutes. I have boiled all stones in the vivarium and rinsed the gravel for the false bottom in hot water. Is there anything that I missed doing? Or is there something to control the mold? I had planned on hunting isopods this weekend with my son to have as tank cleaners but didn't want to put them in too early as I wasn't sure if they would have anything to eat before the scorpions arrived.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated, I surely dont want to clean a vivarium every week and the mold is pretty bad, especially within such a short time period. I'll try to post some pix of the mold before I run out to get new substrate as I will dump what is in there currently. Also for the substrate I had used the Eco Earth Coco Fiber. I mixed in a bit of Pete Moss also, Pete was maybe 20% and it was about 80% Coco Fiber.

As always, any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some pictures:

This is the only one of the piece of cork bark. This had some greyish fuzzy stuff on it. Not like the other piece but I'm assuming this is also mold.
[img][/img]

The rest of these pictures are of the other piece I had in there and it is grape driftwood or something. Both pieces were bought from pet stores.
[img][/img]





It really looks a lot worse in person, I think the flash caused some of the detail to be lost by the flash.

You don't need to worry too much about mold - it's occuring because of the high humidity.

You don't think it is of any worry for the scorps soon to be living in there? I'm worried about it spreading like mad.

Is there any way to control it? Will isopods take care of this problem?

Lastly would you just leave it be, or dump the substrate and put new stuff in? Not sure how to kill that mold without bleach, will baking the the wood and bark for another 30-40 min @ 350 kill it?

Ok, I did some searching on the forum and found I may be overreacting. How in the world can you clean up the wood and bark though? I'm going to do a little research and try an figure out if I can find some wood lice near my house as well, see if I can incorporate some of them with the isopods.

Thanks Binksyboy

To be honest I don't think you can fully get rid of it. Your enclosure needs moisture and humidity, which will probably make the mold return. My best advice is to take out that piece of wood and use it for setups that require dry and hot enclosures. Just pick off any substrate that is infected with the mold and toss it out--you don't have to get rid of it all. I'm pretty sure the baking will not work. I've baked my pieces of wood before and still a no go.

I had a piece of wood like that before and it continued to have mold grow on it until I tossed it out.
Some pieces of wood simply don't do well with mold while others, such as aquarium driftwood, do well in moist and humid environments. It's basically the type of wood. For example, the aquarium driftwood piece I am using right now does not mold. Most likely the mold will not do harm to your scorpion, but it's not very pleasant to look at haha.
You can look up malaysian driftwood and those will probably not mold on you.

Awesome, thanks for the insight there. Unfortunately I had already picked up a couple of 1/2 logs to use before reading your post but did not change out substrate, so I'm still ahead there. I'll keep my eyes out for some good aquarium driftwood and I'll do a little searching on the Malaysian driftwood as well.
Thanks for the feedback it is definitely appreciated.

Hold on.... I have a solution to your dilemma... this will also purge your decor of mites... even for for treating soil substrate.... but this is most likely to work for your cork bark driftwood or even collected bark pieces from the wild...

Step1: soak them in a basin of warm/cold water overnight. completely submerged. this will get rid of any stowaway microfauna i.e. mites... everything

Step2: Sun-dry; in my old apartment, I had a balcony with enough room to stand in. Coincidentally, that's where the air-conditioning exhaust was so... when I leave my laundry/vivarium decor out there for the day, I have it sufficiently them all sufficiently sterilized. Alternatively you could bake/microwave them but but but and more buts....

driftwood is driftwood whether from Malaysia, Japan or the nearest coast to Wisconsin... the best thing to do... take a walk down the beach on a sunny weekend and keep an eye out for nice wood/rocks

Have fun!!! don't stress...

Cheers

I wouldn't say all driftwood is the same. Malaysian driftwood is very dense and has a nice mahogony color to it (for aquarium sinking and aesthetics).
Where did you get your wood pieces from, iitomodachi1? Well, I have also taken wood pieces from my beaches and it sure is not the same as malaysian driftwood--not as pretty and the weight differs. I don't know what type of tree the wood comes from, but it sure is nice. The washed up driftwood where I am located does not compare, but you may have better luck, iitomodachi1. This is the type of malaysian driftwood I am talking about: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=malaysian+driftwood&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&cid=8410940104533119182&ei=ISdeTIzoLJDSiwSAgNnhAw&sa=image&ved=0CAgQ8gIwADgA#p

Wow those look nice! I may look or some of that. If at all possible I'd like to still salvage the wood that I had, even though I've already replaced it. I'll try the water over night deal. I also have a balcony I can let it sit and dry on. One of the pieces that was mildly affected was cork bark and the piece that had a lot of problems was Grape, I'm guessing it is grapevine as it is all gnarley and twisty like that. Both pieces were bought from a pet store

My son and I hunted isopods today too. We have about 20; some that roll up and some that don't and a ton of babies. Hopefully they help out a little.

Well, I definitely appreciated all of the input and responses, thanks

H. laoticus wrote:

I wouldn't say all driftwood is the same. Malaysian driftwood is very dense and has a nice mahogony color to it (for aquarium sinking and aesthetics).
Where did you get your wood pieces from, iitomodachi1? Well, I have also taken wood pieces from my beaches and it sure is not the same as malaysian driftwood--not as pretty and the weight differs. I don't know what type of tree the wood comes from, but it sure is nice. The washed up driftwood where I am located does not compare, but you may have better luck, iitomodachi1. This is the type of malaysian driftwood I am talking about: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=malaysian+driftwood&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&cid=8410940104533119182&ei=ISdeTIzoLJDSiwSAgNnhAw&sa=image&ved=0CAgQ8gIwADgA#p

I'm sorry guys... I must insist as a Malaysian.... that the notion that driftwood is Malaysian is a misnomer... It could practically come from anywhere... I'll go so far as to state that the kind of maybe South-east Asian mangrove wood are of a much denser consistency. But this attribute depends ultimately on the treatment of the wood prior to packaging and retail. Real-Quality driftwood comes from Japan... but truly exorbitant as driftwood prices go.

Thanks for the insight as always. Would you imagine the driftwood being any cheaper in Japan rather than buying it here? I'm just curious because I have some hook ups from when I lived in Tokyo for a little bit