Shedding for the first time

[That_One_New_Guy]

So my BP decided to go blue today which is good but if only she waited till tomorrow. It's feed day here and I pulled out all the rats and the mice I needed. I go up and check on Sasha to see if she was blue and lo and behold she's blue and not gonna eat. What a pain lol I go through the effort to get her food and she's all like nah. Also anybody got any tips on how to keep coconut dusk nice and damp for humidity mine is starting to dry out despite daily misting

[KMG]

Pour water on it and stir with your hand.

[anicatgirl]

What kinda tank? Like screen top fish tank? Or?

[Sauzo]

That stuff soaks up an ungodly amount of water. I ran into the same problem when I used it, spraying it with a spray bottle was pointless as you needed to literally soak it to get it to hold water. Like KMG said, you need to slowly pour water on it while stirring it, thus why I hate the stuff but that's another story Also keep it stirred every few days as I found mine molded and started growing these weird mold balls under the surface. They felt almost like clay when you broke them open but they were white and kind of gooey, and no it wasn't snake urate. This only happened once in a year of using it but I also used about 2 inches deep and my snake packed it down from her weight so that might have aided in it molding. The main reason I found out was when I opened the cage it started smelling like mildew and when I dug around looking for snake poop or pee, I found these mold ball things. That's when I took her whole cage apart since it was a Pro-Line cage and I scrubbed each piece and then put it back together and threw out all the wood logs and washed her hides. Since then I have used nothing but aspen and I love it. Anyways, good luck with the stuff.

[kitedemon]

interesting after many years i have never had coco coir smell of anything other than moist earthy smell, in a pleasant way. Sauzo your experience with it is different from mine. I am not a huge fan of aspen, mine always grows black mould sooner or later. Different suppliers perhaps?

[Sauzo]

Maybe. I was using Zoo Med Eco Earth. I actually had a plant sprout and start to grow in it once lol. I was using Zoo Med aspen too and it was ok but expensive. I recently switched to Allpet aspen from Walmart and its about $3 per 20qt bags and ot works great. Its not as finely shredded as the Zoo Med stuff but its not dusty and still packs down ok with my big BCI girl.

[That_One_New_Guy]

I was using aspen at first because it is what I had but I switched to a mix of repti-bark and eco earth and it got me the humidity levels I needed. I have my BP in the exo terra 36x18x18 with tin foil covering 3/4 of the cross sections. I just got done re-watering the substrate and all well for my girl to shed (I hope)

[KMG]

I use the compressed Eco Earth and have never had an issue with mold or growing plants.