Some Help with substrate for H. Arizonesis

yeah! is the ...uh... iron content... it helps prevent... er...
errr....
mycosis!!... by... ummm... showing if moisture is present, by rusting!...

yeah... thats why they were there...

Streettrash wrote:

I wouldn't use that stuff. It dries into a sort of plastic consistency. You want pottery clay like this.

Umm ill send pics of it. i have it drying and it drys like a rock, crumbles into powder when i smash it with somthing like pottery clay. ill put up picture of box and dryed clay itself and tell me what you think

the stuff in bought dried and crushed into powder

befor i crush some
give me any suggestions if you think its bad for my haddy or not

Its also all natural by the way , the texture when dried is that of like a dirt clod really hard but smashes pretty easily

Should be fine if it's all natural. Looks like clay dust to me. I thought it was the sculpy kind that dries into plastic. Does it turn back into clay with water?

_scorpio_ wrote:

pluto wrote:

you might laugh when I say this, but I use odourless cat s hitgrains. I add them to a sift and poor water over it, which takes away some bentonite and leaves in the cup beneath a greyish liquid.

...

I like it, but ofcourse excavator clay has the same effect. I just like to use cat shi t grains.
Where's my pink?

dont do that^ its a breach of the anti swearing rules because you are avoiding the swear filters.
BEX! tell 'im off!



i used black sand mixed with excavator clay so you can actually see the scorp easily without putting it on an incorrect substrate, although the substrate was also mixed with cocofibre and gravel... seemed to work well... i think the ingredients were:
50% black sand
30% ex clay
10% cocofibre (dry)
10% gravel
that makes it 100% i think, perhaps 1% dead crickets.... oh and the gun cabinet keys were in there too... its not such an exact science...

As long as you're getting a moist substrate which is burrowable and doesnt stick, its all fine for the forest giants. No matter what kind. Take what you want, in the amounts you want, just keep it made out of natural materials.

Streettrash wrote:

Should be fine if it's all natural. Looks like clay dust to me. I thought it was the sculpy kind that dries into plastic. Does it turn back into clay with water?

Yeah man i think it does tommorow im gonna smash it all into powder and but some play sand from home depot and start process. i feel real bad cuz my poor little guy is gonna be stuck in tubberware container for like two weeks

Thanx everyone for giving me suggestion i really appercatie it. ill post pics of how it goes

cant wait to see pics the scorp wont mind being in a tub our haddy was stuck in a tub while ours dried out too she loved her little tub lol

Awsome ill make my haddy as comfortable as possible while hes in his little scorp motel. Also posted rest of my collection.

really wished i had read this post before i did my haddy tank. had the tank in my spare room while substrate was drying. took 3 of us to lift it once finnished :O plus now its all died its set to like rock hard. and worried my haddy can't burrow alltho its having a bloody good go at it. when i lost the scorp i dug it all up to find it. so now its all a mess. since i already have the base of excavator clay and sand. can i add to the top with sand/coco fiber? rather than just take it all out again? i might have to find a temporary tank to put haddy in while i finnish it again.

Since you've already resurrected a dead thread, I guess it can't hurt to add to it. (It happens to everybody.)

I would move the haddy to a temporary tank. A shoe box sized plastic container with a tight fitting lid, some air holes, a couple inches of sand and a hide should be sufficient. I would then redo your main haddy tank.

You didn't say what ratio of ex-clay to sand you used, but "rock hard" sounds like too much ex-clay and not enough sand. A ratio of 25/75 or 30/70 clay/sand seems to work best. Haddys often dig through much harder ground in the wild, but why make them work that hard in captivity. If your substrate has more than 30% ex-clay, I would remove all of it from your tank, adjust the mixture, wet it thoroughly and add it back.

If your substrate is between 25% and 30% ex-clay, you only need to redo the stuff you broke up. The unmolested substrate in the tank should be fine. Just wet it down while you're adding back the missing substrate. I wouldn't try adding coco fiber, sand and ex-clay is all you need.

Your haddy tank will probably take one, more likely two, weeks to dry out, but it's worth it in the long run. Your scorp will be fine for a few weeks in a temporary tank. And as you found out, haddy tanks are heavy. Dry packed sand weighs 13lb/gal. A 10gal haddy tank can easily weigh 65lbs.

This is what I would do, but I've only had my haddy for 5 months and I'm far from being an expert. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.