Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Rob_McGrory]

Someone suggested that I could use a mixture of play bark / chipping, soil, mulch and leaves for a substrate for my young salvator. I want something that will help with keeping the humidity up.

Will this be suitable?

I also heard that some mosses can be good for this, but would he just tear this all up?


I am currently building him a new Viv, we have the frame completed just have to fit his pool and make it a nice place for him to live now. I will try and post some pics of a few different stages of the construction.
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1.1.0 Bearded Dragons - Girr and Lenore
0.1.0 Royal Python - Wednesday
0.0.1 Salvator Monitor - Banski
0.0.2 African Pygmy Dormice

[lol93]

I use orchid bark or garden bark from Asda as my substrate. It keeps humidity relatively well if you spray it a couple of times a day. Some monitor keepers swear by oak leaves, but I've yet to try that! Sphagnum moss mixed in with the bark would be fine.
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[Rick_Albig]

I use compost and leaf litter for my doreanus about 15" deep. It would also work great for a salvator. It holds humidity and a burrow really well and is fairly light. I have it really really moist (almost wet but you need a well constructed viv for this!) and throw in a few dozen earth worms and a bag of wet leaves every other month or so the keep it clean and in good order. This works great as it is almost impossible to spot clean due to how much digging and cage rearranging is done!

A great tip i got told once to check your humidity: Stick a camera in the top of you viv and take a photo without it misting up its not humid enough!

Give it a go.

Rick

[baloo]

i successfully use mulch from focus for my BTS and previously for my black and white tegu
sometimes you get a few bigger pieces but i just remove them

just make sure it says no chemicals added

you can't argue with a fiver for 100 litres
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ULI

[Rob_McGrory]

thanks for the advice. I'd never thought about earth worms in with it to keep it clean.



Does anyone use live plants in their setup. As he is only young I want to give him plenty of cover, would he just destroy any plants in the viv? I was thinking maybe climbers and hanging plants from the top of the back of the viv?
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1.1.0 Bearded Dragons - Girr and Lenore
0.1.0 Royal Python - Wednesday
0.0.1 Salvator Monitor - Banski
0.0.2 African Pygmy Dormice

[lol93]

I use fake plants. They won't get trashed, and they're easy to clean!
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[christophermchale]

i usually use shredded aspen on my monitors. i never got into the bark substrates because the amount of dust.
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cardboard city.