There's Calci-sand, and there's Calci-sand lol. Most brands of calcium based sands carried by pet stores are similar in both grain structure and material. They are mostly composed of jagged, sharp grains of the mineral CALCITE. This is a complex subject, but you can think of calcite as the "crystalline" form of Calcium-very much like diamond is the crystalline form of Carbon. And, like diamond, calcite is very hard and resists being broken down-especially in your lizard's stomach! Not a good substrate choice for our reptiles! In fact, the only thing I know of that's worse is the "crushed walnut shell", "desert blend" type......

There is an alternative. One company (that i know of), Carib-Sea, makes a sand composed entirely of smooth, rounded grains of "aragonite" (coral sand). This product dissolves VERY readily-in fact if you wet your fingers and take a small pinch of it, you can feel it dissolve as you rub the fingers together! And what's even nicer is that this product (Reptilite)is roughly half the price of most other calcium sands! I've been using it for four years now on a variety of geckos and other desert and savannah lizards with not a single impaction.

Sorry for the long post, but I've been breeding leopards since 1980, and I've tried every substrate out there. I really think you should try this one.

Brad Chambers

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