Issues with Eco Earth humidity

[Juicebøx]

I bought a package of the Eco Earth compressed coconut substrate after I started having shed issues... and now I can't get the humidity down to an acceptable level. Before I get into that, let me start from the beginning.

I live in San Diego, so weather shouldn't be a big issue... but for some reason, I started having shed issues 2 months ago. I have no idea what happened, as I didn't change substrates or any other part of my husbandry, I just had 4 of my 7 snakes have bad sheds. I don't really subscribe to the "soak them in the tub and rub them down" mentality. If they have a bad shed, I will make sure that it isn't impacting them in any way (no eye-caps, etc)... and let them have the "dead skin" stay there until the next shed. As they started to go into shed the next cycle, I made sure to spray them down 2-3 times during the week leading up to the shed... and none of them had good sheds AGAIN. At this point, I wanted to make sure that they were all able to get the dead skin off, so I soaked those who still had issues, and they are all back to 100% new skin.

With these issues, I started looking at different types of substrate (and started a thread here about Coco Coir)... and since I just ran out of aspen, decided to get a block of the Eco Earth. For those that don't really know much about the Eco Earth, I'll break down how you go about using this stuff... The item I bought was the 3-brick one. It has three blocks about the size of a normal brick, and you have to allow it to soak for 30 minutes to break it up. My problem, is by following the instructions, it says to use ~1 gallon of water (3-4 quarts) per brick, and let it sit for 30 minutes. The package says that it may be "too wet" so allow it to dry in the sun for 2-3 hours will help.

After 2-3 hours of letting this stuff sit in the sun, it was clear to me that it was still WAY too wet, so I left it out overnight. I made sure to mix it up every few hours to ensure that there weren't puddles not receiving air. 24+ hours after adding the water, I figured that the substrate should be "dry enough", so I did a deep cleaning and changed tubs. I used as little substrate as possible, to keep the layer thin, but the next day all of their tubs were REALLY wet.

When I say wet, I mean "raining from the top of the tub" wet. I have a Vision 5-tub V70 rack, and two sterilite tubs. When I lift the lid on the sterilite tub, it literally rains water onto the snake..... I put an oscillating fan blowing air across the tubs (aka through the air holes), and that seems to help with the wetness along the walls of the tubs, and it doesn't "rain" when I lift the lid, but if I turn the fan off over night (I live in an condo, so there is no "snake room" and the ambient temp gets down to 69-70 in my house... tubs stay at 85-89 degrees, even at night) so I don't want to be blowing COLD air into their tubs during the night.

So here are my questions:

1. Should I be overly concerned with the amount of humidity in the tubs? I know that coconut holds a LOT more water than aspen does, which is why I got this stuff, but should I remove it from my tubs? When I pick the snakes up, they don't feel wet to the touch (with the obvious exception of where water has literally just rained down on them), so I'm not sure if this is just going to be my new normal.

2. For those that use this stuff for ball pythons, how do you "dry it out"? I really like the way the coconut looks, and I like the absorption factor, but I feel like this is too much moisture. How long do you allow this stuff to "dry off" before you put it in your tubs. I can't imagine having to pre-make my substrate a week or more before I clean tubs because I have to "let it dry". I am actually looking into getting some Herptopia bedding, but I want to see if there is anything at NARBC in Pomona before I have it shipped from the east coast (shipping is a killer).

[Sauzo]

You don't want it so wet in the cage that it is "raining" or have condensation in the cage 24/7. That is just asking for mold, bacteria or fungus to grow which can lead to RIs, scale rot and other problems. Even for like GTPs, you mist them down and then let the cage dry out and then re-mist. I personally hate Eco Earth. I used to for a while and the problems I found is if it dries out, it gets really dusty. its get everywhere and turns into like mud if dragged into a water bowl. Also despite people saying it doesn't mold, I had it mold and it started molding any wood that was touching it. My snake packs it down so I think the combination of it being wet and packed down with no "air flow", it grew mold. I ended up having to tear thw whole pvc cage down and scrubbing it out. I threw out all the wood and then I switched to aspen and haven't looked back.

I personally don't have a problem holding humidity with aspen. All my AP cages sit at around 65%+ with just an extra large Exo Terra water bowl. If I need to raise it, I just fold a wet paper towel and put it on top of the warm hide and it will raise the humidity to 80%.

You really shouldn't have that much of a problem with aspen in a tub. Do you have too many air holes drilled in it? Did you drill the holes in the side of the tub for the Sterilites? And I wouldn't blow a fan across the super wet tub. You are asking for problems, cold air combined with excessive wetness is not good.

When I used to use it, I would mix up tubs of it and let it sit for days before using it to let it dry out some. Kind of the same way you do with salt water tanks. Always keep a rubber garbage can of mixed and conditioned salt water running all the time for changes. My only advice is move the snake to a different tub and let the stuff air dry a few days while you stir it a couple times a day to air it out.

[Eavlynn]

Condensation like that is a huge issue, as Sauzo stated. I use ecoearth and have had the same problems. What I do to dry it out is set my oven to 350F, spread the substrate out in a baking sheet, and cook it until it's dry. I tried sitting it in the sun, but it took weeks before it was dry enough not to max out my hygrometers. I love the substrate though, the difference in my pythons and boas is amazing. Their scales are softer than a babies bum, shiny, and they have beautiful sheds.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Aztec4mia]

I bought a package of the Eco Earth compressed coconut substrate after I started having shed issues... and now I can't get the humidity down to an acceptable level. Before I get into that, let me start from the beginning.

I live in San Diego, so weather shouldn't be a big issue... but for some reason, I started having shed issues 2 months ago. I have no idea what happened, as I didn't change substrates or any other part of my husbandry, I just had 4 of my 7 snakes have bad sheds. I don't really subscribe to the "soak them in the tub and rub them down" mentality. If they have a bad shed, I will make sure that it isn't impacting them in any way (no eye-caps, etc)... and let them have the "dead skin" stay there until the next shed. As they started to go into shed the next cycle, I made sure to spray them down 2-3 times during the week leading up to the shed... and none of them had good sheds AGAIN. At this point, I wanted to make sure that they were all able to get the dead skin off, so I soaked those who still had issues, and they are all back to 100% new skin.There are other ways to get off stuck shed without "soaking" them, I always liked soaking because I enjoy spending the time my snakes while helping get the old shed off. Leaving the old shed on is kind of asking for another bad shed, especially when you don't know what caused the stuck shed in the first place, one snake I would have chalked it up to a fluke, but with multiple snakes I would start looking at the environment or other issues. I don't mean this to come off as scolding, just what I would do if I was in your position.

With these issues, I started looking at different types of substrate (and started a thread here about Coco Coir)... and since I just ran out of aspen, decided to get a block of the Eco Earth. For those that don't really know much about the Eco Earth, I'll break down how you go about using this stuff... The item I bought was the 3-brick one. It has three blocks about the size of a normal brick, and you have to allow it to soak for 30 minutes to break it up. My problem, is by following the instructions, it says to use ~1 gallon of water (3-4 quarts) per brick, and let it sit for 30 minutes. The package says that it may be "too wet" so allow it to dry in the sun for 2-3 hours will help.

After 2-3 hours of letting this stuff sit in the sun, it was clear to me that it was still WAY too wet, so I left it out overnight. I made sure to mix it up every few hours to ensure that there weren't puddles not receiving air. 24+ hours after adding the water, I figured that the substrate should be "dry enough", so I did a deep cleaning and changed tubs. I used as little substrate as possible, to keep the layer thin, but the next day all of their tubs were REALLY wet.I don't use or like eco earth for my ball pythons, but I do use it for my Crestie tanks. This stuff holds a lot of water and even with the "suggested" amount of water it is too wet, and will not evaporate enough water when you leave it in the same bucket you soak it in. What I do after it is done soaking up the water is basically grab handfuls out of the bucket and squeeze the excess water out, place it in their tub (they have screen tops so extra drying is not needed) you can place it in another container after squeezing the excess water out and let it dry out further.

When I say wet, I mean "raining from the top of the tub" wet. I have a Vision 5-tub V70 rack, and two sterilite tubs. When I lift the lid on the sterilite tub, it literally rains water onto the snake..... I put an oscillating fan blowing air across the tubs (aka through the air holes), and that seems to help with the wetness along the walls of the tubs, and it doesn't "rain" when I lift the lid, but if I turn the fan off over night (I live in an condo, so there is no "snake room" and the ambient temp gets down to 69-70 in my house... tubs stay at 85-89 degrees, even at night) so I don't want to be blowing COLD air into their tubs during the night.

So here are my questions:

1. Should I be overly concerned with the amount of humidity in the tubs? I know that coconut holds a LOT more water than aspen does, which is why I got this stuff, but should I remove it from my tubs? When I pick the snakes up, they don't feel wet to the touch (with the obvious exception of where water has literally just rained down on them), so I'm not sure if this is just going to be my new normal. Slight fogging on the sides is normal after adding new moist substrate to a tub because you have a heat element in it, humidity will raise the first couple days while the substrate dries out. Dripping water is not good and it should be dried out further.

2. For those that use this stuff for ball pythons, how do you "dry it out"? I really like the way the coconut looks, and I like the absorption factor, but I feel like this is too much moisture. How long do you allow this stuff to "dry off" before you put it in your tubs. I can't imagine having to pre-make my substrate a week or more before I clean tubs because I have to "let it dry". I am actually looking into getting some Herptopia bedding, but I want to see if there is anything at NARBC in Pomona before I have it shipped from the east coast (shipping is a killer). If you can find it at a show, cypress mulch is what I like. It holds moisture but not a crazy amount like eco earth and it is more chunky and does not get dusty, I have also tried fir bark(orchid bark) but I still prefer the cypress.

[Reinz]

I love Eco Earth for great humidity control in Tanks. But for plastic enclosures it can have the opposite effect as you have discovered.

Once the Eco has dried, then it is ok because you are then in control of how much water/moisture will be added.

As I have slowly added plastic enclosures to replace tanks, I find that Cypress alone does the best and EASIEST job for me.



With Cypress, a little water goes a long way. And very easy cleanups too!

[Rikoku]

I was having the same issues with the coconut husk, I was getting condensation on the side of the tank. I used a hair dryer to dry it out a bit to bring the humidity to an acceptable level.

[lawnchaircrisis]

I switched to using eco-earth over a year ago and love it. However, it does hold a ton of water! It sounds like you may have used way too much water to hydrate the eco-earth bricks, it's not supposed to be like potting soil.

One trick is that when you are hydrating the bricks, add less water than they tell you to. I usually add about two quarts per brick in a bucket, and then continually mix and squeeze it while it's "hydrating". Usually what happens is that the outer layers of the brick will absorb most of the water leaving a chunk of brick in the center and then all of the hydrated eco earth around it. Resist the urge to add more water, and let the unhydrated brick continue to absorb moisture from the eco-earth around it. It will take longer this way, but can then be put directly into a tank or tub after a few hours.

If you can pick up a handful and squeeze and have water come out, it's too wet to put into a snake's enclosure.

Since I've been using it I have never had any issues with stuck sheds and the snakes seem to like it. I've never seen it get moldy, and it absorbs smells and snake poop surprisingly well (although it's good to stick clean regularly)

[Neal]

I've never used eco earth for snakes, but have when I used to deal with scorpions.

The two best options for humidity for me were: Cypress Mulch & CoCo Husk. I don't have a problem with Aspen, but when I get my White Lipped Python I want to keep the humidity in the 60's and during shedding I may elevate slightly, well my first go around I'm going to use CoCo Husk as I bought a few bricks to expand, then I'm going to let it fully dry out that way I can control the humidity and aim it the way I want. Cypress Mulch is great because it also helps with humidity and may be a better option for you.

[blk02ssmonte]

I use Reptichip. That works very well for me in my tubs. Holds humidity great and is easily cleaned. Total clean out about every 3 months. Been using it for couple years now and I am happy with it.