Substrate?

[Skits]

I'm tired of carpet. Tired of tiles.

What does everyone recommend for beardies, other than sand? My temps are good, my beardie eats well, I'm not worried about husbandry causing impaction but I just don't want to use sand for my own sake of mind because of a past bad experience.

[poison123]

Tan dirt..

[Skits]

:smug:

Guessing that's sand?

[poison123]

Maybe :p..

Are you not interested in loose substrate?

Look into some loamy soil.

[Skits]

:yes: Haha. I think I'm pretty much open to anything now, maybe even sand. I think I got brainwashed on a facebook group to have tile and paper towels, but today I made a single comment opposing this and telling them that beardies won't get impacted with proper husbandry and I got someone telling me to stop giving off misinformation and then got banned..no wonder everyone has the same opinion on there..

Loamy soil seems interesting. It's mixture of sand and dirt?

[jarich]

Is that the one where they dress up the dragons in little suits and other 'wonderful' things like that? Seems they really love to ban people for bringing silly ole science into their discussions.

Anyway, as to your question, set yours up with a bio active substrate. Sandy soil is both a very healthy substrate choice as well as looking great in the enclosure. I switched about 8 months ago now, if I remember right, and couldn't be happier.

[aRepDysfunction]

This is a tank i just put together, a simple divider holds sand on one side and whatever you want on the other, giving them a clean area to eat and drink, plus it is more humid on that side as well. just an idea

http://i.imgur.com/NU5snRi.jpg

[pdomensis]

I tried the walnut husk substrate for a while, but then switched back to sand after reading a bunch of horror stories. Now that I know a bit more about the beardie blog people I'm not sure if I had anything to worry about. My dragon really loved digging in it.

[Pirarucu]

I agree with jarich, a loamy bioactive soil would be best.

[aRepDysfunction]

I tried the walnut husk substrate for a while, but then switched back to sand after reading a bunch of horror stories. Now that I know a bit more about the beardie blog people I'm not sure if I had anything to worry about. My dragon really loved digging in it.

to be fair, i have read horror stories about paper towel, **** can happen on ANYTHING you put an animal on, the trick is to understand how rare and unlikely it is,

[Skits]

Yes it's that page, the one where people share beds with their beardies and call them their babies and all of that.. :sad:

Thanks all for the replies, I'll look into bio active substate. Is it basically sand and dirt or does it have to be a special sort of dirt?

[jarich]

Ya, someone else mentioned getting kicked off there so I went to have a look. When I saw the people who had dressed their dragon up in a tux and actually taken their wedding photo with it, I knew there was no reasoning with them. :D


Ideally, if you know an area outside where there are no pesticides/herbicides sprayed, then use topsoil you dig yourself. Mix it about 70:30 with regular washed play sand from the hardware store and youre set. I usually put a layer of washed gravel about an inch deep in the bottom as a drainage layer, then a sheet of fibreglass screen like you use in your window over the top of that (it keeps the soil from going down into your drainage layer). Then add about 5 inches of your sand soil mix. Youll want to put some leaves on top of the soil to help with the bioactivity and some woodlice (isopods) and springtails in to breakdown your wastes. Those you can find online pretty easy and cheaply. Will keep your enclosure smelling nice and get a good cycle going.

[red ink]

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn214/Red-Ink-Buldogs/FNQ%20to%20Outback/df6333f7.jpg (http://s305.photobucket.com/user/Red-Ink-Buldogs/media/FNQ%20to%20Outback/df6333f7.jpg.html)

40% soil, 30% sand, 20% clay 10% loamy subatrate and you achieve the substrate in the pic above.

[lisas]

Mine is on bio-active soil. I couldn't be happier with it. She has been on it since July and has been extremely healthy. Right now she is brumating under a wooden hide, right on sandy dirt. I'm sure that you're ground is frozen solid right now, so you'll have to wait until it thaws. I used a mixture of sand from a sandpit and garden soil. I put in bark, logs, leaves (dried oak). She has never gotten sick from lack of sterilizing any of these items. Maybe you could look into play sand that you can buy for now. I'd research it though - I know nothing about it and have only read in the forums that people like it.