Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I,m in the process of building a new cage for my nile and was wondering how deep to make the substrate. Also, I'm using pure cypress right now but I was looking through earlier threads and saw a mixture. I think it was 60% peat 30% coconut and 10% cypress. Is this better than what I,ve been using.

nils do exelent on regular dirt, sand, forget about peat and other dusty substrate, iv seen many infection cause by particles.

Thanks Jobi. Can you explain "dusty substrate"? I keep my larger nile in a 10'x 12' bedroom. The floor is covered with 4 to 6" of cypress mulch. I keep it pretty moist. The top layer dries out so I spray it down every day. Dusty seems to imply dry. I,ve pretty much stuck to Rob Fausts' book and my monitors have fared well. There's a paragraph devoted to cypress and I see some pictures of some very healthy looking nile monitors on the stuff as well. Also the book says sand can cause bowel obstructions. Have you ever seen this happen before? I worry about everything man. I had a salvator years back. I raised him up, he always did well as far as I could tell and one day I noticed little bubbles coming from one of his nostrils so I took him to the vet right away. The vet looked him over for a minute and said there was something stuck in his nose. so, I held him down as the vet jammed a forcept in and pulled out a 3" plant stem of some sort that must have gotten mixed in with his leaf litter. If I hadn't caught it when I did he may have died from infection.
???
Roger

Sorry for late reply, I do not visit this forum often.

Pleas forget about any other substrate then a good sand-dirt mix, these are what water monitors understand and use, all water loving species understand sand, they nest in sand and bask on sand. I keep seeing peoples imposing all kinds of mulch and peat, but these are no good and eventually will lead to problems, first monitors nest in medium they can compact, dirt-sand fits this requirement.

Also water monitors should have access to water for bathing, this alone will keep nasal and other orifice clean.