Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have my 13" BGK on TREX BONE-AID Calci-sand now, which is pretty much just crushed Calcium carbonate. It says its "highly digestible" and has "reduced Impacability". Should i worry at all? i know normal sand can cause digestive problems which is why i sprung for this more expensive stuff. I dont really want to lay down papertowel or anything that doesnt look "natural"

Thanks in advance
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Frisk

I will start by saying that others WILL disagree with me, but i just sat through a lecture/slide show presented by one of the top herp vets here in NY. He showed us several slides of impactations and explained in detail the surgeries he has preformed on both snakes and lizards to remove substrate impactations. He said in his opinion the crushed walnut bedding is by far the worst as it swells after being injested. Sand including Calci-Sand is in second place as the worst choice of substrate.

Like i said others will disagree and have been keeping animals on sand succesfully for years..

We just had this discussion a couple of weeks ago actually.. but this is what i know about the substrate topic.

~ Mike

So i did an experiment...

The sand is made up of black grains and white grains. I took one of each colour and placed them in a bottlecap then filled it with vineger. (My make-shift snake stomach). After about 4 hours the white grain was nearly dissolved and the black was slightly smaller. This seemed like a decent sign that they are digestible.... But which is more acidic? the HCl in a snakes stomach or rice vinegar?
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Frisk

I use aspen exclusively, for a variety of good reasons mostly having to do with the maintenance needs of a large collection, but on the subject of calci-sand, the following is a post I made to the horned lizard forum recently (it applies equally well to graybands):

"There's Calci-sand, and then there's Calci-sand. 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-even in your reptile's stomach! Not a good substrate choice for our reptiles!

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."

Brad Chambers

Mike, you are absolutely correct in saying that the calci sand is not a good substrate. Let's face it, who out there in alterna land has actually caught an alterna "in the sand"? I dare say no one has. This substrate may look good but fine sand like that is EXTREMELY DETRIMENTAL to the snakes health. I agree with you. A person who uses this is asking for MEGA problemos!!!!

Wayne H.