Sand

[bromide]

I always hear people say sand is only bad for babies/juveniles, and it's OK to have an adult leo to live on sand. Is this true?

 

[Russ S]

Use the search feature to look for threads about sand. You will find many varied opinions about it.

 

[bromide]

I couldn't really find anything about it. They usually just say sand is bad, but they don't specify whether it's bad for babies or both.

 

[ks7777]

I have an adult that was on sand and now hes dying a little more eachday he hasnt ate in 2+ months...I DONT ADVISE YOU USE SAND!

 

[IslaReina]

I'm sure you can find plenty of threads with information specific to your question if you look a little bit harder.

 

[Jenn_tigercat]

my babies are kept on paper towels while my adult female is on sand. She was on sand with her previous owner then with me. She hasn't had a problem with it. Don't use Cali-sand though cause there is a higher chance of them eating it in order to get calcium. Also I feed all of mine out side of their tanks to make sure there is as little sand consumption as possible.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Ahhhh. The 'great sand debate'... again.

 

[Russ S]

I just want everyone to know that if this thread gets out of hand it will be closed.
Infractions will be given where appropriate.

 

[sausage]

i know its every one to their own but i have kept adult leos on sand for many years and never had a problem. i do keep hatchlings and juvies on paper though more for cleaning reasons then any thing as its much quicker to change.
i personly dont like the calcium sand as one it has rather large particles and its a night mare to clean, i use the fine grade type

 

[TokayKeeper]

MOGL invented sand...created shortly after dirt.

 

[leopardgeckogeek1600]

When I bought my first geckos from petsmart I had calci sand for substrate and thesE were the baby geckos petsmart sells And they did just fine with it. They say that your gecko could risk impaction if they are to young but mine were perfectly fine. If you have adult leopard geckos then the should be perfect with sand.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Is it worth the risk?

 

[T-ReXx]

When I bought my first geckos from petsmart I had calci sand for substrate and thesE were the baby geckos petsmart sells And they did just fine with it. They say that your gecko could risk impaction if they are to young but mine were perfectly fine. If you have adult leopard geckos then the should be perfect with sand.

Yes, because the employees of petsmart are soooo well educated on reptile care.

In case you couldn't absorb the sarcasm the point is that that statement is total BS. Geckos of any age and any species can be impacted on a loose substrate. It happens in Uroplatus and those species rarely even come in contact with the ground.

The sand debate is nothing new. The fact is there is a risk involved when using sand to the animal's health and absolutely nothing to gain by using it beyond perhaps wanting a "pretty" enclosure. Put it this way; are you willing to pay a $400 plus vet bill and/or have your animal lose it's life because you want to keep it on sand? If no then don't use sand. Simple as that.

 

[M_surinamensis]

The fact is there is a risk involved when using sand to the animal's health and absolutely nothing to gain by using it beyond perhaps wanting a "pretty" enclosure.

There's some benefit to using variable or yielding surfaces as a substrate. It has a positive impact on skeletal and muscular development. Using different parts of the feet, angling the legs in different directions and experiencing variable resistance is going to produce slightly healthier muscle tone and avoid some of the potential problems associated with constant repetition of identical movements and pressures. It's benefit that is difficult to quantify, especially because measuring it by results introduces additional variables (diet especially) but it is a benefit beyond aesthetics.

Even more difficult to quantify are potential positive behavioral ramifications. Instinctive behaviors that are fulfilled as a result, the removal of stress factors when confronted with environmental conditions outside of what they evolved to meet. Bright, white, flat, empty paper towels are not something a species that depends on camouflage and stealth are normally inclined to seek out.

It comes down to risk management and intelligent use. There are ways to make particulate substrates safer for the animals, through careful selection, through the placement and preparation. This doesn't eliminate risk, but it can significantly minimize it, potentially to the point where it becomes acceptable and even desirable. Unfortunately it has been my experience that most people are unable or unwilling to give the matter the forethought and planning required to use such substrates safely. Their thought on the matter doesn't go much further than what color they want and their applications of it are frequently unsafe. Grade and shape, packing density and composition, preparation prior to use, moisture content; generally overlooked as things which can be manipulated. As a result, most people should not use particulate substrates because most people aren't going to use them correctly. I'm positive that you could though Ted. Or, as an example that pops to mind, Tony would have no problem doing so as a result of his experience with doing the exact same things* for dart frogs. Gregg M has been doing it for years as he refined his mixtures and the packing on his bioactive substrate enclosures.

I'm just saying that there is potentially something to gain, but doing so requires calculated management to minimize risk factors and that it's not necessarily appropriate for most people to try.

... and now, as always, I am uncertain if I should even have mentioned it, since the people who are best able to use them safely are the ones who least need me to mention it.

*just with slightly different end goals tailored to the species involved

 

[sausage]

i must say i totaly agree with everything you said there
i do have a female leo with hip problems that shes had from birth and the sand dose seem to help her walk more comfortably so shes more active than without it. i also have seen that the leos on sand do appear to be significantly more content and active on sand then any other material such as tiles and carpet for example. they exhibt a lot more natural activites such as digging. THEY LOVE TO DIG!! i think this helps keep them occupied.
dont get me wrong it took me a very long time with trials and errors untill i was happy with the sand i now use.

 

[SDCowboy]

I switched my new leo off that walnut sand junk. While it looked prettier, it's just not worth the worry to me. Since I put in the repticarpet, my leo races all over the place now as he doesn't slosh around in the sand.

 

[T-ReXx]

I agree Seamus; there are situations and applications of particulate substrate where it is beneficial and can be used when the correct steps are taken and the keeper is experienced enough to observe signs of potential impaction and react accordingly in a timely manner. And there are ways to minimize the potential of disaster with these substrates(Using a leaf litter layer, or flat slate to minimize surface areas, feeding dishes, correct type and consistency of substrate, etc) and I do use loose substrates in many of my enclosures(Uroplatus for example absolutely require it for retained humidity levels). However I also agree that the majority of keepers lack the experience and in many cases the dedication required to safely keep leopard geckos on a sand based substrate. I wholeheartedly agree it can be done, the benefits you mentioned are potentials but most keepers aren't thinking in those terms when they ask "is sand ok?"

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

i have kept adult leos on sand for many years and never had a problem.

Just because you haven't had any problems doesn't mean that your won't. We must remember that in their natural environment where leopard geckos come from they do not live on sand. They live in rocky crevices and hard-pack clay dirt strewn with rocks, so their GI systems are not adapted to pass particulates.

 

[TokayKeeper]

A few years after I started keeping leos I switched over to using a sand-coco fiber mix, but unfortunately that didn't work to the means I had in mind. The result was the sand particulates sifted to the bottom and the coc fiber to the top as it dried out. The best luck I've had was with arroyo gravel I cleaned, sifted, and sterilized. During this time frame I even went to straight coco fiber and paper towels. The largest annoyance I had, particularly with paper towels, were geckos wanting to instinctually dig which resulted in shreaded, bunched up paper towels.

Arround this same time I also had an outdoor pen. Back then I live in Alamogordo, NM. Habitat and climate, from the best I can gather, is fairly similar though more rain fall annually (if memory serves me well) to Afghanistan (which is why Holloman AFB, White Sands Missile Range, and Ft. Bliss use the area for desert warfare training). Said outdoor pen was 8ft in diameter, circular, and had about 300 lbs of play sand in it. It was originally designed for keeping and breeding bearded dragons in, but I sold my beardies before I utilized it. The inside had large, flat limestone rocks I'd collected locally and by the 2nd season (2001) I had native grasses growing within the pen. Housed inside of it would be "Triton", my first ever produced leopard gecko.

Seamus hit basically why I've kept with housing my leos on sand for the last 15 years and that hit combines with Triton's behavior while in the pen. Triton made a wonderful network of tunnels and burrows under and around the large flat rocks. My tub and aquarium habitats now model that pen, but on a smaller, more simplified scale. My aquaria have 2 artificial rock hides (medium caves from Petco), 1 is a dry hide and the other is a heated moist/dry hide. I say moist/dry as I'll weekly saturate that end of my tanks and then let it dry out over the week. This hide is positioned directly over a 40watt bulb, which the geckos surprisingly use for basking in early morning hours. The substrate in each tank is straight play sand, washed to remove the fine dust. The thing I find most interesting about this setup is that a few of my leos will actually behave like knob-tail geckos and dam up their hides.

All this in mind, and I've posted about this before, I've yet to have but 1 issue with sand and it wasn't impaction related. Triton's father, Golden-Eye, wound up possibly getting some sand stuck on one of his hemipenes, which resulted in an infection within his hemipene pocket. He lost that hemipene and was seen by a vet. That was summer 2009 and Golden-Eye has been on sand or arroyo gravel (bb sized grains or smaller) since 1997; I got him Oct 96 as a month old hatchling. That little incident resulted on him being moved, permanently, to repti-carpet. However, back in 97 Golden-Eye, and leading up to his 2009 medical problem, also had a similar setup to my outdoor pen, but within a 10 gallon tank. His 5 girlfriends, 1 of which was Triton's mother, had a similar setup within their 32 gallon Oceanic Lizard Lounge.

Their setups, plus other leos I once had back then, as well as other species I've kept over the years is the reason why I utilize particulate substrates with my animals. Even though many of these reptile species we breed today could be considered "domesticated", they aren't on the level of what is traditionally domesticated. As such, they still retain many innate qualities and characteristics. As keepers of these animals, it's our responsibility to foster these behaviors by providing enrichment. 2 such examples are a particulate substrate to foster digging (which also naturally maintains healthy nails that don't over grow) and a moving, live prey item (crickets). The only lazy man's prey my geckos get are superworms, and I hand feed them. They get no mealies in a bowl. By providing a moving prey not confined to a bowl, I'm offering a hunting challenge; a postive stress since it's a captive situation.

Ultimately, since people outside of our hobby don't see these animals as domesticated it is our duty, our responsibility to provide them with a captive habitat that fosters their wild, innate desires. For me, that's providing a natural-istic habitat, whether simplistically or complicatedly set up. If I wanted a puppy mill or lab rat colony I'd keep all my animals on butcher paper, newspaper, or paper towels. But part of keeping reptiles, to me, is also replicating their natural environment. For me, that makes using sand, or sand mixes worth the risk to me, versus being lazy (in my opinion).

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

The following are some links to information on sand impaction in leopard geckos. Some of the photos are GRAPHIC. I really like this quote from one of them:

We all realize that sand is an attractive substrate. The problem we encounter using sand though in captivity is that it forces the leopard gecko to live in an environment that mimics the Sahara Desert. This is NOT a natural environment nor is sand a natural substrate for this species. Sand makes up a very small portion of the wild leopard geckos habitat. As soon as owners realize that their leopard geckos safety and health is more important than how they want their enclosure to look, the fewer vets will have to deal with impactions.

The leopard gecko in the following x-rays had been housed on sand for the past 14 years. (You read that correctly. This gecko had zero issues with impaction for the 14 years it was housed on sand. Impactions do not discriminate.) Up until this point the leopard gecko did not have any visible issues that had caused the owner to worry about impaction.

http://www.herpcenter.com/leopard-gecko-sand-impaction-xrays.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/Impaction
http://www.petkareclinic.com/cases_rocky.htm