Posted by:
sean1976
at Wed Jan 30 14:44:48 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by sean1976 ]
Cocanut fiber works great. It's very resistant to molds/fungus, retains moisture beautifully, and has a nice appearance(medium wood brown). It's only down side is that it is so fine you can end up with little cocanut splinters too small to see.
One less available option that avoids the sliver issue is to use chopped cocanut bedding instead of the fully proccessed fiber bedding. The chopped stuff is little cubes of cocanut husk and has all of the properties of the fiber except the splinters. The only downsides of the chopped bedding is it is harder to find and I believe a little more expensive. Oh and storing it takes more space as it can't be compressed like the fibers can.
Another alternative that might fit the look you are going for is orchid bark. You can get it in many different sizes so you can customize the appearance that way. It looks, in general, like alot of relatively smooth edged bark/wood pieces. So it lets you not only get the correct color for a woodland scene but also the shape of a natural part of the woods. Combine this with a branch or two and some clumps of green moss and you have a nice forest scene. It molds humidity decently but nothing like cocanut. Biggest disadvantage is that, just like wood shavings, you have to dig/sift through the substrate to look for feces or urates.
Hope the info was helpful.
Sean.
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RE: Attractive substrate? - sean1976, Wed Jan 30 14:44:48 2008