Sand question

[Danman88]

I am currently in the process of putting together a living natural terrarium for my Ball Python. I have been following the advice of a very helpful and informative book by Philip Purser called "Natural Terrariums" (go figure, lol). In this book it breaks down the various things (substrate, plants, heat, humidity) for a number of different types of terraria (desert, woodland, grassland, etc) and the animals best suited for them. They suggested a grassland setup for ball pythons. For the substrate they suggested: 2 parts ground coconut husk (coir), 1 part sand, and 1 part composting leaves.

At the moment I am stuck on the sand. In the book the warned against using Calcium Carbonate sand because as you water the plants it will cause the calcium to leach into the soil and severly alter the PH levels of the soil. I have also read numerous times that silica sand should absolutelly not be used with herps, especially snakes.

My question is, are there any sands I can use that are not calcium carbonate or silica based that would be safe to use? I have found ground english walnut shells. My question with these is how long will it take for these to break down?

I apreciate any advice.

[Mike41793]

I would do like a 3 inch layer of coir with a 1 inch layer of cypress mulch on top of that. Ive done this before and many different plants grow in the coir pretty well and the cypress keeps the moisture around the roots. Alot of the "grassland" plants grow too big for a terranium. I had devils ivy(pothos), bamboo, and some of the air orchids growing in my tank. The pothos THRIVES lol. I got the air orchids at one of the expos. I just used some fishing twine to tie them to branches I had in the tank. They didnt really grow but they do really look cool. I put a few drops of miracle grow around the roots of the plants like once a month and I think that helped them. My snake has never burrowed so i wasnt worried about him being hurt by it and it was only a few drops once a month. I hope this helped, if you have any other questions let me know

[Mike41793]

Oh yea and also I wouldnt use leaves bc that has a bunch of bugs and potentially pesticides in it and it was too hard to find a sand that was ok to use so thats why I didnt use it. You could also put a layers of stones/pebbles on the bottom for drainage but that becomes a PITA if you ever need to change the substrate and it makes the tank REALLY heavy if you ever have to move it. They also scratch/crack the glass too.

[Danman88]

I planned on using a small drainage layer, and plan on planting a Benjamin Ficus and a Hoya Carnosa I have growing in a test tank. i also plan on purchasing a Sansevieria as well. Im using a 75 gallon tank so my plants have plenty of room to grow. I like the cypress mulch idea though, i hadnt thought of that. thanks