Substrate poll!

[Tkohlbre]

weren't wood chips deemed the bane of a leo existence? i thought they were toxic! Anyways i use very fine calci sand and i also hand feed her to a1void any possible impaction.
I'll add that she has never had a problem with eating/poopin yet

 

[gmaier19]

upgraded to tile abt 6 months ago or so. it wasnt as expensive as i thought it would be to fill the floor space of my 40 gal and the cutting was almost free. i think in the long run tile is the way to go cause ur not replacing paper towels all the time. over a leos life of 15 or 20 years thats a lot of paper towel. it looks way better than sand too.

 

[Taquiq]

Paper towels

 

[Mr.Lizard]

newspaper

 

[monkeytechahoo]

we have stone tile here, so easy to clean and change out.

 

[Seibar]

i had desert sand at first (suggestion by the ******** worker...:main_huh then quickly realized it was horrid and changed to paper-towels. i have a repti-carpet i use on top of the paper-towels now, will stop using it if i notice his/her nails getting stuck!:main_thumbsup:

 

[iceman5008]

I have my Leos for pets and i care about how it looks and paper towels are eye piercing UGLY. I use "screened and washed" PlaySand from a department store. The sand isnt dusty at all and i feed them in a seperate tank....and they're adults

 

[Heatherdove]

For those of you using the Zilla Reptile Carpet, how well does it transfer or hold heat?:main_huh:

Not very well. I live in Los Angeles though so I think it will be fine for me most of the year since it can get quite warm in my apartment. I was thinking about getting tile for the winter though.

 

[nelo]

I just switched to shelf liners from paper towels. The geckos kept digging the paper towels up at the corners and then pooping on the bare bottom, or even putting the paper towels in the water bowl and soaking the water up. The shelf liners look very nice, a nice design and the geckos can't move it around so easily. It was a 1'x5' piece too, perfect when I cut it in half to cover my two 20gal long tanks.

 

[Tig]

My Gecko is on paper towel. It's easy and cheap to clean, it dries out quickly in the event of a spill, and my Gecko enjoys burrowing under it. My Snake and Anole are on some Eco-Earth like soil and wood chips, and my Frogs are on moss.

 

[leolover23]

I use a nice slate tile It's very natural looking and my leo seems to enjoy it. I used to use eco-earth, but I was paranoid about impaction so I swtiched

 

[5HiddenLizards]

I use an 80/20 sand soil mix for my adult & paper towel for our juvenile.

 

[SilverTheLeoGecko14]

I actually have repti-sand right now but once we find a bucket to soak it in I'll have EcoEarth.

i have ecoearth cause my leo likes to dig,and its digestibale.:main_laugh:

 

[SilverTheLeoGecko14]

I use ecoearth and love it. I have to say it smells nice (after you just soaked it smells like it does outside after a rain), it causes no harm if swallowed, and I think it makes my leos stand out really nicely against the brown. Plus, they love to dig in it.

same here:main_thumbsup:

 

[Bubba_da_leo]

repti-carpet all the way!!

 

[earls413]

Switched from repti carpet to ceramic tile( Got it at Lowes 3 12x12's cut to fit $5.00). Best decision I've made looks great and easy clean up.

 

[Glass_]

I use newspaper with slate in the corners(to keep the roaches from going under) and on the heated side(to avoid overheating).

 

[Desdemona]

So, my thoughts (first day owner, so don't hate on me) is basically I have two bags of sand and don't want to just toss them. Do geckos like to lay in sand at all?

I could put the sand in a little dish (who knows, maybe he'll use it like cat litter) and then when I feed him I take out the dish. So, unless he just decides to munch on sand he shouldn't have any impaction problem. Once he soils all of my current stash I won't buy him any more (it is the cali stuff).

What do you think? It is a young guy, so I could just hold onto it until he gets older and then try the above to see if he likes/cares about the sand.

 

[NWA_JTV]

There are people who have kept leos for years on sand with no problems, and there are others who have had nothing but nightmares with the slightest bit of sand in their vivs.

I previously (years ago) used calci-sand as the substrate with my first set of leos and had no problems. Now, I'm using sand as a stabilizer and seam filler with slate tiles currently (<1/8" of sand exposure between tiles), but I don't think I'd be willing to take a chance with wide expanses of sand again based on what I've read. That's me though, and my opinion is simply that.

 

[Desdemona]

Its interesting how that works sometimes, not just with geckos of course, person A uses said horrible product on pet and their pets live to full life span maybe more and person B has all of their pets suffer ill fates, injury, whatever with the same stuff. I bet the animal itself has something to do with, some geckos are just going to be more careless eaters than others. Of course you'd have to know which kind you have, or of course play safe. I took all of the sand out of my guy's cage yesterday, so he is sand free now.

I might try the type that was mentioned earlier and was digestable later, but right now I'm fine with the paper towels. I was going to get slate but the Homedepo by me said they wouldn't cut it