Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering what everyones' opinions were on their favorite substrates? What has worked for you? Do you prefer soil or cypress mulch? Pro Exotics likes decomposed granite; has anyone else tried it? What do you think of it? What about Zoo Med Forest Floor has anyone tried it? How about ESU Reptile Jungle Mix Lizard Litter? It sounds like a good prepacked soil. Has anyone tried it? Here is an ad for it that I plucked off the internet; it looks like it has all the ingredients that you would want in a soil substrate.

ESU Reptile Jungle Mix Lizard Litter provides a natural living

burrowing reptiles and plants. It promotes breeding, nesting and egg incubation.

Once again this is just your opinion on what has worked for you.

P.S. Does anyone use those night time heat bulbs (red or dark blue/black)for their monitors at night? Does that work for you? Why or why not?

Those prepacked soils are always such a ripoff... there's nothing in there you can't buy at Walmart for 1/10 of the price... That mix sounds very close to what I make myself for my higher humidity reptiles.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

I have hundreds of lbs of dirt in my monitor cages that cost me time and effort (digging, straining, carrying, etc). I added 60lbs of sand to the mixture but its such a tiny fraction that you cant tell its there, it cost me 2.99.
To buy that stuff in an amount to fill any of my cages with monitors, it would cost about $130 to fill my ackie cage(or more). This amount pails in comparison to my big albigs cage with many times that amount. Besides they may or may not like or use that stuff. The last time I checked Proexotics uses a top soil brought to them by a local landscaper. The article you read on the decomposed granite is old, before they had BTs lay eggs.
Just dig dirt and add sand to it depends on the species (in small amounts).