Eco Earth/Bed a Beast etc. - bad???

Hi, I currently use terrarium soil with no fertilizers for my horned frog. However, I saw some Eco Earth and it seemed cleaner and I wanted to use it. These are those compressed coconut husk bricks that soak up water and become like 8 times their original size or something. I read that they were recommended in a llot of sites, and so I bought a brick.

However, I was just told that because they absorb water and expand in size, this mechanism is bad because they will absorb all the water through the frog's skin! Obviously, it will be used moist and pre-expanded, but still, will this happen? Is it true or just some crap someone spewed at me again.

Thats a great question! i too would like to know this answer. lol I have never heard of this, but I can see how it could certainly be a possibility.

I have never heard of that and I use it for my pac man frog, and also my whites treefrogs. The only thing I dont like about it is that they get it in their mouth when eating. I also keep the tanks very moist, so that it does not ever dry out. It is an interesting thought though.

Ok, how about if I ask this way. After they expand, and they dry, do they go back to the old size? If so, then maybe they will still suck up water if not fully hydrated. If not, they perhaps they have changed after soaking and no longer soak so much water.

No they do not go back to the original block size, they just dry out and become dry dirt. Hope that helps!

I could be wrong here but I think the block is just very tightly compressed. when it is it the water it absorbs some just like regular soil would but because it is compressed the absorption allows it to not so much expand, but more like it gets separated. once it has "expanded" it will still absorb excess water but like any kind of soil it shouldn't draw it out of something (someone) else...

I use it with my tree frogs. I have to spray it a couple of times a day to keep it moist but otherwise I have no complaints...and no dehydrated frogs.

I also used it with my tomato frog with no issues.

Don't worry, coconut mulch such as this will not suck water from your frog Shelly pretty much explained how it works. The bricks are compressed, and the water both separates the substrate and then soaks into it. If you hold a sponge to your frog he will not be drained of water, and the substrate works the same way.

I noticed my Whites Tree frogs were getting too much substrate in their mouths when eating. I scooped out some of the soil and placed large rocks around the water dish and in the corner where the crickets like to hang out. My frogs LOVE the rocks. They sit on them all the time. And when I say large rocks i mean large, 2-3 times the size of the frogs. No ingesting pebbles here!!!