Are you on Facebook? There is a vivarium/terrarium page on there very active. I am about to start my new build now. I'll take some pics along the way, but it certainly won;t be a desert environment LOL.
The reason people who raise dart frogs and other amphibians make their vivs the way I am making my plant vivs (Of course I learned and took the ideas from them) is that once the viv is bioactive, its like an aquarium...the waste from the animals is naturally broken down by insects that are introduced into the viv and by bacterial action. A pro said that if you set your viv up correctly from the start, you should NEVER have to change out the substrate that everything is growing in.
That isn't true for desert tanks. You will still have to scoop poop. My daughter gave up the 'natural' sand and live plant look and went to those eco mats because it was too hard to scoop out the poop from her reps with live plants and cool rock formations and stuff in the way
