Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know theres TONS of questions on this. But I have:

Whittemore
Graded Harticulture Vermiculite
A3 Medium

will that work? I only ask becuase its easy for me to get.

thank you.

frank

I would use the vermiculite or perlite, and go substrateless so to speak. Get the white plastic grating that covers flourescent lights at your local hardware store for about ten bucks for a four by two sheet. Cut it to fit your incubation container. Saturate the hell out of your vermiculite or perlite. Set the grate over it and the eggs on top. Seal her up, and open once a week unless your incubator is causing condensation in which case I'd open daily and dry the lids, or fix the incubator -
Zero guesswork. If done right it'll hold at almost 100% humidity, without the eggs coming in direct contact with substrate that's too wet or too dry.



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Primeval-Beauty
"Finding beauty where other's fear to tread"

Well you answered one of my questions, why use the grating. but is the media i have here suitable? or is horticulture grade not what i want to use?

Horticultural is fine. Using this method, you could use gravel and have about the same effect. We just use the vermiculite and perlite because it's inert and sterile, as well as doesn't harbor bacteria or fungus. Whereas gravel, or other media could. Also I think alot of us are just set in our ways. I've seen this method used with just water, and supports to keep the grating up. But that scares me because my luck I'd slosh it around and drown my eggs
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Primeval-Beauty
"Finding beauty where other's fear to tread"

good call with the water thing. thanks for your help! its just convienant for me to use this becuase i can get 23lb bags all day long every day. not that im ready to use that much but its here

frank

>>good call with the water thing. thanks for your help! its just convienant for me to use this becuase i can get 23lb bags all day long every day. not that im ready to use that much but its here
>>
>>frank

skip it..get the perlite...that way your eggcrate doesn't sink and become useless.

good luck
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Charles Glaspie
http://s25.photobucket.com/albums/c95/Coldthumb
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I use perlite. A couple of my clutches were a little too wet and the eggs absorbed a lot of the water, although they did hatch ok. I decided to change and use the grate and it worked perfectly. No guesswork and I did not have to over saturate the substrate (make soup) it just needs to be damp.

Good luck!