baby spottys are eating great

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newtamander

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I have great success this year with raising baby spottys. The eat chopped earth worms, maggots, white worms, tiny crickets, fruitflys, and newt and salamander bites (pellet). I want to move them in to a permanent juvenile setup and was wondering what I should use for hiding place:confused:. I would greatly accept any ideas:D
 
I just use leaf litter and bark curls for my juvenile Ambystomiads.:D
 
Any experience with peat moss? I have seen seen it sold in my local pet store and that looks like it might be good.
 
Peat moss has some acidity to it, so I tend not to use it strictly as a substrate. I will however mix in a little in with my coco fiber if I am planning on growing plants in the tank.
 
I do use cypress mulch for my older spotty and that works great for him but has large chips of wood in it and I'm afraid them getting crushed:eek:. Also if coco fiber is coconut then this also is a problem because I'm allergic to coconuts:(.
 
Hmmm well the allergy poses a slight problem, I'd be dead by now if that was my problem.:D There is another product out there if I remember correctly called Jungle Earth. It may be ok for you although I think there might be a few chunks of bark in it, sorry but it's been awhile since I have used it. If I can think of anything else I'll let you know.
 
You could just use organic topsoil (pesticide free, chemical free, etc.) as a substrate. It does a great job of helping to decompose waste and doesn't tend to dry out as fast as cocfiber. In fact, usually the two are mixed together as a substrate.
 
I think what I will do is mix topsoil with sphagnum moss. One question though, for the organic topsoil should I go to gardening store or would a pet store carry it.:confused:
 
I would go to the gardening store, it will be cheaper there. One thing to keep in mind when purchasing the topsoil is to make sure it's fertilizer and perlite free. Also sometimes the sphagnum will have some acidity to it, just depends on what kind is harvested. I harvest my own and haven't had any problems but others have, so that is something to keep in mind as well. To avoid to much acidity and play it safe, you might want to try a 75% topsoil to 25% sphagnum ratio.
 
I think I'm going to use topsoil mixed with cypress mulch an this spring take some sphagnum moss from the pond (just a little bit) and use that with the other stuff.
 
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