Spiderweb looking mold

[Fadorn]

Hi all,

I recently built my first vivarium which houses a malaysian golden gecko, several fish, snails, shrimp and a couple red claw crabs. For plants, I have three Resurrection Ferns, some live moss from lllreptile.com, and a jewel orchid. My substrate is a layer of tera-lite balls, on top of that is 2-3 inches of CoCo bedding. My temperature is staying at around 78, and the humidity levels are about 80%. The substrate is too moist, I believe, and I am seeing a white spiderweb looking mold starting to grow on one of the ferns, and some of the moss.

I am not sure how to go about drying out the substrate without sacrificing humidity. Any suggestions? Also, I am not sure if the mold is harmful for the gecko =\

Here are a few pictures of the setup, don't have any of the mold on hand yet.

[Epiphile]

Welcome to the forum- that's a nice-looking first vivarium you have.

I would increase the air movement inside the tank to combat this mold- have a look around the forum for ways other people have gone about this. You shouldn't need to sacrifice humidity or moist substrate just to be mold-free.

[beckdg]

welcome to the site.

[stimpy]

Hi there!
Looks pretty good from what I can see. I do agree with Aaron ,normally when you have a closed system with that high humidity you need some kind of air movement.Some of us use small cpu fans.A little air movement can really make a difference.Another cause of spider web mold according to one of my friends on another forum ,is the possibility of fungus gnats? Apparently web like mold is a common occurance if you have fungus gnats.I had some gnats a couple months ago,and I also had the web.Now gnats are gone and no more web,So I dunno,could be a connection.Just my thoughts

[Epiphile]

Originally Posted by stimpy

Another cause of spider web mold according to one of my friends on another forum ,is the possibility of fungus gnats? Apparently web like mold is a common occurance if you have fungus gnats.I had some gnats a couple months ago,and I also had the web.

This might be chicken and egg- the fungus gnats feed on the mold, I believe. They both love the same conditions.

[Fadorn]

It seems that airflow was the problem. I hooked up a couple coralife canopy fans and put them on a 1min/per hour timer, and the spiderweb mold seems to be going away. Thank you for the tip!

I will definitely be doing a lot of things differently with my next tank!

[stimpy]

Ahhhh,very nice !
That's the beauty of this forum.If you have a problem,you can almost always find the answer from someone who has "been there/done that". We will look forward to see what's next for you

[beckdg]