What kind of soil to use

okay all my salamanders are on compressed cocanut fiber. i keep seeing people talking about top soil.... like same soil i can buy at a garden center ? or would digging it out my back yard be better ? the cocanut fiber seams good but i have to really mist it a lot. remimber no jokes please just answer =)

Top soil from the garden is fine but I prefer to use a top soil which has been sterilized. Un-sterilized soil has a surprising number of beasties living in it, some of which can be annoying like tiny flies which emerge from eggs laid in the soil. Shop bought topsoil may also have more organic content than soil from your yard which helps it to retain moisture.

I use this organic sterilized topsoil: http://www.lovethegarden.com/products/composts/levoctopsoil.html

Maybe someone in the US can suggest a suitable product available there.

Jody, I buy my soil from the home center. There's one brand (up here at least) that's organic. It's called Earth-Gro.

As long as you buy a soil that is pesticide free, fertilizer free, and manure free, you can bake it in small quantities to sterilize it.

I usually mix top soil and coco fiber together. This gives it a little more structure and moisture holding abilities.

Hi Jody, I changed the title of this thread - this is not an idiotic question, it's a very important question. I've done quite a lot of trial and error with various kinds of "dirt", and gotten some good suggestions from other people along the way.

2 good things about "real dirt", compared to pure coco fiber, is that it is less likely to stick to amphibian skin, and it has some properties that help it to break down waste products. It rarely molds.

I use a 50/50 mix of top soil (bought in a bag at walmart) and coco fiber. The advantage of including coco is that it holds moisture better than most kinds of dirt do. I also mix in some fir bark chips or cypress mulch if I have it around.

If you are having problems with coco fiber being too dry, I think you need to add more water to it (POUR some water onto it) - either that or else you have too thin of a layer of it. Usually, cocofiber holds moisture pretty well.

hey thanks a ton, well i'm off to walmart... my salamanders will be thanking you soon