Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok Since i now have tile in winkys cage for the most part I still have a few spots where there are papertowels still showing through. DO you guys think that I qouls be able to put Vita-sand under the tiles and so forth rather than the papertowels. Im not sure if I want to but, Im trying to make his tank look more realstic. I know its not all about how it looks their saftey is more important. He has never had a problem with calcium. I always find his little tounge marks and feet prints in his calcium bowl. So would it be ok. I want something so that the tiles can sit in and not have some of the points sticking out. And just haev a smooth service. I heard somewhere that vita-sand is great. Not sure have you guys/gals heard of it.
Vita-Sand

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1 male HY(Winky), 1 Tang female(Sunshine), and 1 Tremper Albino female(Serenity)

What i do is i have tile covering all of my tank except near the edges (about maybe 1/4 inch all the way around) and in the cracks i ill it with Calci sand. It makes it lok very realistic. Cause i you think about it they live on rock ,the slate, and some dirt will scatter like the sand will and it fills the cracks like the dirt does...so its just like their native land.
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-Bryan

That's a good idea...they probably can't get to the sand much anyway if the majority of it is stuck between the cracks. If I was going to use sand that's the way I'd use it. It must look very nice.

Cleo
1:1 leos (4 eggs cooking)

I hear how that when people use the carpet that it pulls their toes and sometimes their toe nails out. Is cali-sand better than vita-sand?
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1 male HY(Winky), 1 Tang female(Sunshine), and 1 Tremper Albino female(Serenity)

because calci-sand may not be digestable...a small bag of repti-sand might work well since the particles are very fine and would fit smoothly between the cracks.
Now, i have a question...would there be any reason to avoid colored sands like black sand? the black would probably look very attractive between the slate pieces or tiles.

Cleo
1:1 leos (4 eggs cooking)

Like i explained in the other post i redid the sand and i used black, it looks great and really accents the tank when the leo scatters it some. I have white slate so when i had white sand u couldnt see it much but the colored sand really accents it.
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-Bryan

i am remodeling my bedroom this summer and i wanted to move the leo tanks up into my room because there will be alot more space available even for three tanks. Maybe i'll use your idea (if you don't mind of course!) with pieces of slate lying over a very thin bed of black reptisand in the large 20gal tank. one or two of Beanie's daughters will be staying with us and one will be sharing the 20gal long with her mother as soon as she reaches her adult size. it would be nice to have something natural looking but very safe as well...i dont believe sand makes a good bedding, but for a filler, it is probably fine. thanks for the idea!

Cleo
1:1 leos (4 eggs cooking)

I dont mind at all, i found that its easir to the the slate down and the dump some sand on the slate and sweep it into the cracks, that way the sand doesnt get under the slate and clump up if it gets wet and smell (i just put some more sand in the other day and when i took out the slate to be cleaned i had a bunch o gross sand that got wet when i spilled some water when illing up the bowl.

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-Bryan

Sounds like an idea to me lol. Gives me a reason to go shop for more leo stuff lol. If I ever have kids I wonder if they are gonna be as spolied as my leos lol
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1 male HY(Winky), 1 Tang female(Sunshine), and 1 Tremper Albino female(Serenity)

my pets are gonna be my children when i grow up...i'm not very maternal i'm afraid when it comes to human children (can only put up with them for a short period of time) but i love my pets so much....i'll have kids when i'm grown up, just not kids from my own species lol

Cleo
1:1 leos (4 eggs cooking)

lol. thats to funny. My niece has a field day just starting and watching the leos in their tank. I like children just well not till im married for a while. Cleo, I'll make sure Ill look u up in about say 10 years and see if this is true lol
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1 male HY(Winky), 1 Tang female(Sunshine), and 1 Tremper Albino female(Serenity)

hehehe...even after an hour of babysitting my neighbor's 6 year old i am ready to go home...and she is a pretty good kid. my parents now know not to volunteer me for babysitting my little cousins when my aunt and uncle come up from Washington because i'll go ballistic. practically the only kid i can stand taking care of is my 12 year old brother because all he does is sit and play gamecube or we'll watch movies together. on the other hand, i dote over all of my pets and care for them like they were human children. weird huh??? lol

Cleo
1:1 leos (4 eggs cooking)

It happened that I was also doing a fecal on a gecko and asked the vet to look for sand because the crickets kept hidding in the cracks and so I didn't think they would eat the sand if I filled them in. It turned out they did find sand in the fecal, quite a bit actually. The vet told me to feed them crickets in a different tank or take out the sand. If you filled the cracks in with thin pieces of brown repticarpet to match the slate it looks great. good luck!!!!

instead of paper towels why not use repticarpet??? it is safe, and will look pretty natural. i really don't like sand and i would advise against it, but the repticarpet will look nice (not to mention it will be cheaper, safer, lighter, and easier to clean than sand).

Cleo
1:1 leos (4 eggs cooking)

np
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-Bryan

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I have done my own observations on different calcium sands especially the ones that say "100% DIGESTABLE" when it should really say "Yeah, its some what passable and may even be digested at times". I have seen way too many fecal samples with the granuales undigested. But rather than rave and roar, here is a link on research done by Michelle Hewitt who went beyond the studies of fecal samples on two different calcium based sands.
Severa
Link

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3.2 leopards( 3 tremper albinos,1 high yellow, 1 tang)1.0 African fattail,0.1 pink toe tarantula,1.0 jungle/diamond carpet python,1.0 albino sonoran gopher,2 eastern painted turtles,0.1 sun conure, leo eggs incubating with one eastern box turtle egg,55 gallon brackish tank, and one ten gallon freshwater, and two chihuahuas......and thats all!

Hilo,

i am using fine sad for my sub adult gecko and for the past 1.5 wks and i really like it alot when comes to scooping up the defecate.

but stil a bit worried abt the among being eaten into the stomach.

haiz..
abit loss

Yes, when i use the sand, I change it out every month, I scoop it every day though, but one must realize that the sand had been tainted with droppings, and bacteria will flourish, and if the gecko takes in enough of it, he will get sick. So I change it all out once a month. I can't afford to do it all the time because I use 3 bags to fill up my 55 gallon leo tank and thats about 25 dollars. So, I prodominantly use patternless bounty paper towels, the quicker picker upper! Hehe! I would never use even fine sand on anything under 5 inches in size.
Severa
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3.2 leopards( 3 tremper albinos,1 high yellow, 1 tang)1.0 African fattail,0.1 pink toe tarantula,1.0 jungle/diamond carpet python,1.0 albino sonoran gopher,2 eastern painted turtles,0.1 sun conure, leo eggs incubating with one eastern box turtle egg,55 gallon brackish tank, and one ten gallon freshwater, and two chihuahuas......and thats all!

Actually I dont really feed crickets anymore to my leos. But I am going to take my vets advice that I got from him when Ziggy was sick . He told me when I feed crickets to put 10 or so crickets in a 10 gal tank and put the leo in there one at a time and let them stay in there for like 15 min. SO this way they wont any substrate and you can also moniter how many crix they are eating. I love that idea cuz Im always scared a cricket is going to get lost in the tank and go after the leos. SO Im going to try that.

Thank you for all the help you guys. I really appreciate it.

Alicia & Jeff
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1 male HY(Winky), 1 Tang female(Sunshine), and 1 Tremper Albino female(Serenity)