Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a lot of this stuff, I want to know if I can use it.

You can use playsand, but there are some inherent problems with it. First, it's heavy, so depending on your setup (i.e. free-standing or wall-hung shelves) there can be a weight issue if you have more than a few cages. Also, it isn't absorbant like aspen or pulp products are, so I found "cleaning" cages in the past with sand to be a bit more of a hastle. Any urates deposited in the sand over a sub-tank heater tends to "cement" up, be hard to clean, and smells seem to occur quicker. If the playsand is fairly dusty there may be the potential for respiratory problems for your animals. Playsand tends to look fairly natural, so if you're setting up a single, large display tank then the other problems may be worth the work. But if your setting up multiple tanks I'd consider more user friendly substrates!
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"It's not that we don't know, it's just that we don't want to care..." -Wind on the Water, Graham Nash

Well, serpentdude pointed out some things, but there are some more problems. Sand is a great substrate, because there are solutions to the problems and it looks nice, but using sand will definitely be more work than aspen or pine shavings, and is more expensive. Some people worry about mites or other living invalids already existing in the sand, and a lot of times the playsand comes moist or damp, which can cause respiratory problems and high humidity levels in your cage. To remedy this, I nuke the sand in the oven at a whopping 475 degrees fareinheit for about a half a day so it will dry out and the parasitic microscopic bastards within can die a miserable death. Don't leave the oven unattended (trust me). When the sand is done cooking it will have dried into clumps that you will have to break up. Wait til the sand cools off before you stick your hands in it to break up the clumps (trust me). Also, I have found that sand actually clumps well with snakes' excrement, but it is harder to remove the clumps. What you can do is get a large mesh strainer and strain the clumps and feces out of the sand. As far as the smells, serpentdude is right. Most of the sand I get already smells terrible. Well, if you do all the work to give them sand, you might try putting some rock formation in there too to simulate the natural habitat and make the cage look nice. Just make sure the rock is steady so they don't knock it over and get stuck under it.

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