Is paper towel safe?

[Boa'sUnlimited]

On another forum everyone was suggesting to switch to tile because paper towel can cause impaction apparently... but how the heck do you tile a bin? Lol... Or is paper towel fine and everyone's just tripping out?

 

[cowana]

I think paper towel in general is fine. You need to monitor each gecko and if you notice that a gecko is starting to pull at it, eat it, etc, then you should remove it ASAP. Usually if a gecko is displaying any of those behaviors it is a sign of a bigger health problem.

My geckos that are in bins don't have any substrate currently besides folded heavy duty paper towel in their potty corner and coco fiber in the moist hide. It makes it easy for me to twice weekly spray down and wipe out their tanks to sanitize. My show tank currently is tiled with the paper towel in the potty corner, but one of the geckos recently decided they want to potty on the hammock. haha

 

[Boa'sUnlimited]

I think paper towel in general is fine. You need to monitor each gecko and if you notice that a gecko is starting to pull at it, eat it, etc, then you should remove it ASAP. Usually if a gecko is displaying any of those behaviors it is a sign of a bigger health problem.

My geckos that are in bins don't have any substrate currently besides folded heavy duty paper towel in their potty corner and coco fiber in the moist hide. It makes it easy for me to twice weekly spray down and wipe out their tanks to sanitize. My show tank currently is tiled with the paper towel in the potty corner, but one of the geckos recently decided they want to potty on the hammock. haha

I guess I'll keep the paper towel because I've never had issues with it or seen a gecko eating it. Although I would like to move all my pairs of leo's to 4x2s and tile that which will be a lot better (could tile the floor and then a bit of the walls so everything's covered) - and yeah I didn't want to go with just paper towel where I think they'll poop because mine do have spots they like but as you said, they will poo anywhere lol.

Thanks! I appreciate it.

 

[cowana]

No problem! All of mine are really good about using just one spot, except one of my girls decided the hammock would be a good new spot when I added it a couple weeks ago. I haven't caught which girl it is yet. [emoji53]

I do love the tiles. It makes for a super easy clean up. I managed to find tiles that fit almost perfectly. I just ran aquarium air line tubing around 2 edges so there was no gaps. I know Lowe's will cut tile (only straight cuts) for 25¢ per cut to do a custom fit.

 

[stager]

How would a Leo eat a towel? Paper towels are fine

 

[Tangential1]

Of all the substrates, I've tried 3 of them: reptile carpet, tile, and paper towel. I didn't keep the carpet long, because I found that my lizard's nails kept getting snagged in it. The tile looked pretty (I had it custom cut at Lowe's to fit snugly inside the bottom of the tank) but it was just so difficult to get in and out of the tanks; always felt like I was going to break the glass. Ultimately, I like the paper towel the best. I use a brown 100% recycled paper towel from Kroger's. I put a little extra where they poop and change that spot daily. I think it depends on how you feed your lizards, too. Mine eat from tweezers or their bowl. If yours prefer to have prey that is moving around the tank, there's the potential for it to get under the paper towel and your gecko to accidentally bite off a piece. Never heard of paper towel causing impaction, or of geckos intentionally eating it.