Poll: What Substrate Do You Prefer?

I just wanted to see what people use. Im thinking of trying something new and wanted to see what everyone else uses and most popular substrate

Newspaper, but all three of our boys are in a rack, so humidity isn't an issue.

I really like cypress mulch


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Newspaper, or cypress during times the air in the house is very dry.

Depends on the animal.

Cypress for my adults and aspen for my hatchlings.


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Love my coconut husk. Keeps up the humidity well.


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Originally Posted by Mr. Misha

Love my coconut husk. Keeps up the humidity well.


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X2....easy to spot clean and doesn't hold bacteria as bad.

Just some plain old bounty paper towels.

I use a mix of aspen and cyprus mulch. Not mixed in together, but separate areas of the vive. The mulch especially under/around the water bowl in case of spills (doesn't mold like aspen when wet) or if someone is playing around in their dish...

:rolleyes:

Paper towels or newspaper....Cyprus for the BRB

sent via something from somewhere

Paper towels for the ones in a rack & aspen for the PVC enclosure.


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paper towels/ home depot painters paper

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Originally Posted by Morris Reese

X2....easy to spot clean and doesn't hold bacteria as bad.

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Agree!

I layer it on top of the clay balls which does a good job of holding water beneath the soil, thus allowing the humidity to remain constant.

I use artificial grass. It can be easily washed and cleaned. Looks great too

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Originally Posted by Morris Reese

X2....easy to spot clean and doesn't hold bacteria as bad.

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I agree, coconut husk never moulds when kept clean, I use it for pretty much everything with newspaper for dryer times and cooling. The only drawback I have with the husk, is that you can't let it go completely dry or it makes dust, apart from that perfect for BP, Corns, BRB, Frogs, but not for Beardies or any dry animals.

Paper towel or newspaper. I don't like aspen or shavings anymore, lol. Paper towels are easy and cheap. Plus you can get them from the Dollar Tree :)

I use basic masking paper. 180 feet of it at walmart is $3

Butcher paper. I get 1,000 feet of it for cheap at samsclub and bought a holder/cutter on Amazon.

coco-husk. I've always been a coco-husk guy. I used cyprus mulch when I first got into them but it was too expensive, then I used Aspen when I was breeding rats (made it easy to just have the one bedding). I find newspaper and paper towel makes it too hard to keep the humidity relative, even with my humidifiers and heaters.. Coco-husk is perfect IMO.

News paper free and easy

Aspen for all enclosures (I have racks, tubs, and T8s). I like to give them something more comfortable to lay on then the plastic bottom. And some of them like to bury themselves in it or make a wall around themselves.

I think it'd be neat to have a poll specifically for those with racks use.

When I had tanks I used all kinds of substrates, carefresh (never again), aspen, newspaper, eco earth, coco fiber.

Now that I'm fully switched over to racks, I stick with paper towels. Cheap, quick, easy, awesome.

I love EcoEarth. It does wonders for humidity, and the snakes seem to have a way better skin condition on it.

White paper towels for me.

Repti-Zorb liners here.

I prefer cyprus mulch. Holds moisten better and there fore maintains humidity longer than aspen which I used before.

cypress mulch all the way

I've used all of those options before as well as a dozen others. I always end up coming back to newspaper. It's clean and it's simple.

I like coconut fibre. It seems to be a good substrate for my snakes and other critters

I am loving the eco earth coconut bricks. Just put them in a bucket of water and they expand and one brick is more than enough for my 40 gallon breeder. It holds moisture well and dries well so my snake doesn't end up going for a swim.

Newspaper! I've managed to get my family members to keep theirs, so I have a steady supply. I like that its so easy to change out. I prefer aspen, visually, but I just find it too much of a hassle deal with on a daily basis. All my snakes are in a rack and I've never had an issue with humidity. :)

I use newspaper for my entire collection.

Cypress mulch!

I use cyress mulch

I use aspen... I like Nepco lab bedding the best but Petco brand is not too bad. I put in extra for the ones that like to burrow. Looks nice, smells nice, and soaks up messes until I find them and clean them up. It's pretty inexpensive if you buy in bulk. I live in a very high humidity area so I don't have to worry about how dry the substrate is.

I prefer paper. Being around the military I actually have the guys that are moving get me a stack of the packing paper that the movers use when packing their household items and it works great.

Cypress Mulch. It holds in moisture, doesn't mold, and looks good.


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Paper towels. I use a rack system. Its the easiest to clean completely, leaving no smell at all in the cage, until they go again :P

Retired Jedi, my old drill sergeant in AIT had Jedi as his religion on his dog tags, I guess a few of them did. Just thought I'd mention.

The question should have been "what do the snakes prefer?" I know my ghost girl will burrow in the bedding but she's the only one that's done that so far. Right before I got on the computer I was just thinking about what type of bedding I'll be using in the future. THE "180 dollar" thread had me thinking about cost and I realized I'm spending a lot on aspen bedding when I could get newspaper for free from my cafe. I already use "to go" boxes as hides and "to go" soup bowls as water dishes lol. I'm uncertain of which would make the snakes happier but I would imagine they would prefer something other then paper towel or newspaper and perhaps even throw a log in there for them to climb over? I'm going to search the husbandry threads and if one hasn't been posted I might have to take some various set up pics...

Sani chips

I like this one called Forest Floor, which I'm pretty sure is Cypress mulch. It's insanely moist right out of the bag- you can see the condensation inside the bag it's so wet!- so for the first couple days it'll send your humidity through the roof! Great to use when your BP is going in to shed. :)

I`ve used aspen but it`s really easy to get mold and not good for cage feeding. So, I`ve changed to packing paper and it`s a cheaper than aspen, no more mold and no more worry to do cage feeding.

I always used aspen until moving to Florida. Now I used Coco Husk (eco earth). As it tends to be more predictable in regards to Humidity changes. It looks great too in a viv

Hello everybody, I was wondering if what I'm doing
would be okay for my female spotnose ball python.
She's a little over a year old in a 10 gallon tank but
I have a 55 gallon that I'm prepping for her and will
add many hides and or half off the enclosure to make
her feel more secure if need be (maybe thinking foggers
along with dehumidifiers working symbiotically in tank)..

Now, before people start telling me tubs are better
which I'm aware of, I'll make sure this thing is dialed
into the correct environmental settings. I'm versed
with very picky plants so this won't be an issue for
me. What I'm mainly wondering here is if it would be
okay to use these soft nylon/polyester bath mats as
a substrate or just as the bottom of the tank with
sphagnum moss as the substrate. I made sure it was
a non yarn-laden type bathmat that wouldn't snag
scales at a reverse direction. Out of everything I'm
wondering I just want to know if this would be toxic
in anyway , in the way pine and cedar is to snakes,
to my sweet spotnose ball python. I searched the
internet relentlessly and found nothing pertaining to
the materials used, or any bath mats being poisonous
or harmful to snakes. I'm very sure I'm just being extra
cautious, as any novice or even experienced herper
should be, and am making sure I don't mess up. The
tank I got was for free, and discovered the back of it
is shattered which matters not to me as it won't be
holding any water, so I'm putting one of the mats
against the whole back wall as a cover from the glass
that's shattered and to double as a background/soft
material to rub up against. So even if I go with another
substrate, I still have these fake grass pads for reptiles
which I originally had for the broken glass wall until I
bought these bathmats and cut them up. I'll post pics
of the development in a bit depending on feedback ITT.

Thank you in advance!

RustlewoodReptiles

Thin layer of Aspen on the hot side then a mix of Aspen and Cypress for the rest, this is for my 75g tank. I'm setting up a 6 tub rack now and planning on just using aspen for the tubs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RustlewoodReptiles

Hello everybody, I was wondering if what I'm doing
would be okay for my female spotnose ball python.
She's a little over a year old in a 10 gallon tank but
I have a 55 gallon that I'm prepping for her and will
add many hides and or half off the enclosure to make
her feel more secure if need be (maybe thinking foggers
along with dehumidifiers working symbiotically in tank)..

Now, before people start telling me tubs are better
which I'm aware of, I'll make sure this thing is dialed
into the correct environmental settings. I'm versed
with very picky plants so this won't be an issue for
me. What I'm mainly wondering here is if it would be
okay to use these soft nylon/polyester bath mats as
a substrate or just as the bottom of the tank with
sphagnum moss as the substrate. I made sure it was
a non yarn-laden type bathmat that wouldn't snag
scales at a reverse direction. Out of everything I'm
wondering I just want to know if this would be toxic
in anyway , in the way pine and cedar is to snakes,
to my sweet spotnose ball python. I searched the
internet relentlessly and found nothing pertaining to
the materials used, or any bath mats being poisonous
or harmful to snakes. I'm very sure I'm just being extra
cautious, as any novice or even experienced herper
should be, and am making sure I don't mess up. The
tank I got was for free, and discovered the back of it
is shattered which matters not to me as it won't be
holding any water, so I'm putting one of the mats
against the whole back wall as a cover from the glass
that's shattered and to double as a background/soft
material to rub up against. So even if I go with another
substrate, I still have these fake grass pads for reptiles
which I originally had for the broken glass wall until I
bought these bathmats and cut them up. I'll post pics
of the development in a bit depending on feedback ITT.

Thank you in advance!

RustlewoodReptiles

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Start your own thread so this one is not jacked. It will be much easier.

Understood brother, I made my own thread
so a mod can please delete my long post ITT
lol. It's good to see a community that actually
cares about keeping topics inline, thank you!!

To be on topic now, I think I'm going to be off
starting with sphagnum moss and seeing how
I enjoy it; because from what I've been reading
about it's ease of use, maintaining humidity, &
the fact that I use it prolifically as a botanist and
want to see if my orchids enjoy moss soiled by
pythons, it also seems the snakes enjoy it from
what I've seen and read so far. I was leaning
on trying coconut coir as well, also seeing feed
back pertaining to it's moisture retaining abilities.
I'd do a side by side, but can't until I get more balls..

RustlewoodReptiles

I use paper towel for hatchlings/babies and then pine shavings.

I've tried many different substrates over the last two decades and honestly, pine shavings aren't pretty but it's the most cost efficient when you have a large number of cages. Cost is around $8-10 per compressed large bale that expands to 297 liters! To give you a rough idea of surface area comparison, the large carefresh bales sold in petstores are only 60 liters for around $20.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tacticalveterinarian

I use paper towel for hatchlings/babies and then pine shavings.

I've tried many different substrates over the last two decades and honestly, pine shavings aren't pretty but it's the most cost efficient when you have a large number of cages. Cost is around $8-10 per compressed large bale that expands to 297 liters! To give you a rough idea of surface area comparison, the large carefresh bales sold in petstores are only 60 liters for around $20.

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From my understanding, I thought you were NEVER supposed to use pine because of the oils in it were toxic to snakes?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cyndymei

From my understanding, I thought you were NEVER supposed to use pine because of the oils in it were toxic to snakes?

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Its the old school substrate. Lots of guys who have been keeping since WAY back in the day swear by pine. Apparently as long as it has been kiln dried to remove the phenols it works just fine.

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