Continued from http://www.herpcenter.com/showthread...6734#post66734

That article (referenced in the linked thread above) serves well for species other than green iguanas.

This is a huge area of debate: some say it's safe, others say never use it. I believe the bottom line is: are you willing to risk your animal's life over it? The obvious answer for most of us is a very emphatic, "NO."

Sulcatas do love to dig, and they can't very well do that with carpet. I think that their natural habitat isn't really sand, but more of a hard-packed dirt. I've been told that they're known to dig tunnels that are hundreds of feet long. You can't do THAT in sand because it will collapse. lol I would say that since you're feeding him in a separate enclosure, you're probably alright with the sand, but I'd like to hear opinions from experienced Sulcata keepers (we've only had our two since September)

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

alot of people say newspaper and other hard stuff is good.
but I can't subject my pets to pathetic newspaper like puppies in a dirty kennel. its so...ugly and unnatural.

i have a salcutta names Roshi. i have been useing calci-sand for his winter tank ever since getting him a few years ago. been useing it since its supposedly digestible if it gets eaten and calcium is good for reptiles anyway.

i feed Roshi in a seperate tank anyway to prevent him from eating lots of it and developing pyramiding, during the summer, he's kept outside in a large pen where he can dig everynight before sleeping, so in order to let him continue digging, i figured calci-sand would be good. after all, i'd hate to bring him from a pen where he could dig all he wanted, to a tank where he coulden't dig at all.

so...whats everybodies on useing calci-sand in this situation?
roshi likes to dig, and he isen't fed on it. so is it safe to use for him?

lol, odd trying to read the post in a good order. oh well. no big deal.


i was going to move him into a larger tank next winter to offer more space and was gonna try to grow grass so the move from outside to inside woulden't be such a drastic change. so next year he'll probably have real dirt instead of sand anyway.

If you are intent upon keeping him on something he can burrow into I would try using sterilized potting soil (the kind that doesn't contain vermiculite [I think that what the little white things are called]) or something of the like. Although it is not ideal it is better than Calci-sand, which is not nearly as digestible as the packaging suggests.
If you would like to use sand it is preferable to use cleaned play sand over calci-sand, it has been found to cause fewer health problems.

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Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

~*~Lacey~*~

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Zaroba, I think that you have a good point about how to tell the "know it all employee" what is good and what isn't, but I have one particular problem with what you said. You should know what You're talking about when you give advice as well. Calci-sand is not a very good product, and like Lacey said and you shouldn't recommend it to anyone for any animal. If a person is going to give advice I hope that they will have already researched the product or whatever it is that they are giving advice on themselves.

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0.1.0 Brazilian Rainbow boa (Sakura)
1.1.0 Leopard geckos (Tasuki, Sango)
2.0.0 Ball pythons (Tsume, Kenshin)

Which is what's so great about open forums like Herp Center. Zaroba is a new member, and like all of us, his/her participation at HCN is helping him/her to learn better, safer ways to care for herps.

I'm glad you're here, Zaroba!

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck

me too. this place is nice and so full of knowledgable people.

took a while to find this place, but its much, much, much better then the pet-hobbiest.com forums which are complete crap. i'd be embarressed if I owned a site with a forum like the ones they use thier.