I finally picked up a bottle of Bentonite. For some reason I thought it would be powder. Anyway it's in liquid form. I'll test it out soon to see how well it hardens sand up. Cost me $11 for a 500 ml bottle.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

I've never heard of this...but I am intrigued...

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"If you're not falling, you're not trying." - Sonni Trotter

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I read about it on some dart frog forums. Hopefully have some results by Monday.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

Wow kriminaal, i guess the ongoing enclosure projects never stop eh ?

So Bentonite? are you going to be using it for fake background walls?

Please post pix and more info

Ig.

Yeah I'm never satisified with my setups. Currently I want to make a better substrate for them. I starting to believe that loose substrate actually harms the feet of the adults. It's like us trying to walk on sand every day. I'm trying to get a substrate that hardens on the surface for walking but it still has the functionality of burrowing. The high heat required for Ackies dries the substrate out so quickly. Even with adding water daily. There is a product you can buy called Excavator substrate but it would cost me over $200 to fill my enclosure. I'll keep you informed how it goes.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

What about making a floor out of air-drying clay, with holes for burrows, and then putting a deeper layer of a softer digging material underneath? You could put clear poly on the top of the clay to seal it for sanitary reasons (and then it could be wiped clean with a moist paper towel), and mold in finger-holes to allow you to lift it out when you need to change the substrate below. You could put some rocks on top of the clay layer as basking or climbing areas, and even mold in an area for removeable (cleanable) food and water dishes. You could also mold in places to put potted live or artificial plants.

(I'm starting to get into this idea!)

Oh -- and you'd probably have to make the clay "floor" in segments, or it would be liable to crack and break... (if you made it thick enough to resist breaking, it would be pretty heavy) And you might want to rest it on some supports above the floor in places, so that your animals wouldn't accidentally burrow so much that it settles down on them and traps/suffocates them.

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Amy

That sounds like a viable idea as well. If things aren't satisfactory with the bentonite I'm going to look into that idea. thanks

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

If you do, let me know how it goes, lol -- maybe I'll try it for my Leopard Geckos. They seem very bored lately. (Yes, I know they probably don't need lots of intellectual stimulation, and maybe classical music would do, but I also think they might like to dig.)

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Amy

I tried some quickly last night on dry sand. It worked pretty good. It definitely hardened the sand up and would work well for Leopard Geckos. I want it a little harder yet though. Tomorrow I'm going to try misting the sand first to get it wet and then misting the bentonite over top I believe this will harden it up even more.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

No satisfactory results yet. I don't believe misting it down with the bentonite puts enough on. It requires a good dose of the stuff to really harden it up. Which is alright again for a smaller enclosure but not for a large one.
What I did yesterday was I found some good dirt which was a combination of stones, gravel and sand. I put down a good layer in my test tank and then covered it with fine loose sand. Misted it down with water and then misted it down good with the bentonite. I'm happy with the results but not satisfied. It's really stiffened the sand up which will be great for reducing ingestion with food. You could call it a sand crust layer.
But if I'm going to buy 3 bottles of bentonite to do my large enclosure I might as well buy 3 bags of the Excavator substrate and put a layer over my dirt.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa