Question about maintaining sand as substrate.

[Tit4n]

Hey guys,

A friend has asked me about sand substrate for an adult beardie, since i only know about astroturf i had no luck with my response, so i came here to ask.

- Does beech sand need to be boiled before installation into the enclosure?
- Does sand require any weekly maintenance? Not counting daily poop collection.
- Is there any chance of parasites forming with the sand?


Thanks in advance.

 

[The_Dreaded_Pets]

cheap and easy goto bunnings and buy bag of prewashed play sand cant remember what it cost me last time but was only about $5-10

i also have a kitty pooperscooper and used a hotglue gun to glue flyscreen on the scooper to make it a siv makes cleaning quick and easy also means the sand lasts alot longer i clean bout 1-2x a week depending on how messy the little buggers are i have pygmys but generaly everybody says the sand is aok fo all beardies that arnt juvies/hatchies

 

[2beardeds]

I use beach sand with no probs for 2 years. use a $2 fish scoop from cheapie shop as poop scoop.I get mine from dunes so it rain washhed

 

[PaulH]

Taking sand from the beach is against the law

 

[buckby09]

Hi There,

I use the Bunnings sand too, yep it's just under $10 to buy. It's the white play ground sand which is washed ready to go. 1 Bag of it fills my 4ft terrarium perfectly with heaps for my beardie to scratch in for her bed. I also scoop out the poo with a scoop, easy done. Also to help avoid impaction, I feed her crickets and woodies in a flexarium so she doesn't ingest any sand.

 

[2beardeds]

Is in my backyard . Lucky

 

[The_Dreaded_Pets]

i mainly feed woodies with the odd round of crickets, which i just chuck in no sign of impaction in ither of mine but then both are of breeding age. also for there salad i have a small ceramic dish ment for potplants by the time they eat all the salad n run around dig ect there will be alittle sand in the dish the next morning i just tip it out mine have a small wateer dish that needs cleaning atlest every 2days if not every day (u dont need 1 however as there water just about all comes from there food) i dust vegieswith ditamins every few days and gutload the insects cant think of much else to explain other then i have been told to try mixing the sand with coco peat i think its called but thats just for colour variation and texture got some today to use in my new enclosure was bout $3 for a brick and got more sand which as mentioned above is $9 for 20kg i only use around 10kg in my current 2ft enclosure and slope the sand at 1 end so its deaper there.

ps collecting sand from the beach is illegal so i wouldnt condone it not to mention you dont know if there are any parasites ect in it but the choice/risk is yours if thats teh road your friend takes)

 

[Daryl_H]

Taking sand from the beach is against the law

who cares lol its againts the law to do most fun things!!!

 

[The_Dreaded_Pets]

lol that it may be but it would have also been polite to point that out and mention if they choose that option its at there own risk

 

[FAY]

I find sand is fine with hatchies...but stinks in no time with older lizards. I would not use sand with snakes.

 

[The_Dreaded_Pets]

what kind of lizzards fay as mine are pygmys start a job next week so have plans on finally makeing my 4ftx2ft enclosure that will eventually house about 4 or 5 pygmys (1 male) and was going to use the sand coco and red dessert sand mic for that aswell my pair atm are 10+mnths and 18+mnths

 

[PhilK]

1. No
2. No
3. No

For cleaning I remove poo as I see it, and once or twice a year of every few months I take all the stuff out of the enclosure and take a sieve to the sand to collect dried up urate/poo, skin etc I haven't gotten while spot cleaning.

Never noticed any smell with my two ackies - the only annoyance is that they run into the water, run out and crumb themselves and run back in so in no time there is half sand/half water in their bowl. They also spray it up into the tracks of the door so opening the sliding door is worse than nails on a blackboard

 

[scorps]

They also spray it up into the tracks of the door so opening the sliding door is worse than nails on a blackboard

Haha Phil,

Thats the worst thing in the world, that used to be my biggest problem when I kept them on sand, hated getting sand in the glass tracks.

 

[The_Dreaded_Pets]

mine are in glass tanks atm will have to remember that 1 for when i build the malamine 1 next year

 

[lloydy]

Just put a peice of wood on the inner side of the tracks, wider in size so sand is minimal in the tracks

 

[Jk888]

i use sand for all my reptiles and have no problems it can tend to smell however thats easly fixed by removing the top layer of stand (5-10mm) and simply relaying a layer easy as that