Changing soil

[jesse]

Hey all i was wondering since i am thinking of planting the plants that i have in my tiger salamanders tank. I know that thier soil need to be changed periodically, but if the plants are growing in it could i jsut leave the samer old soil in there? would the salamander poop be a good fertilizer? i ask this cuz i whant to go towards a more naturalistic setup. I am awaew that tiger sals burrow and mess up their enclosure, so i will be placing him in a spare tank with soil and such untill the plants take root. any suggestions would eb appreciated.

 

[sharon]

I think it depends on the size of his enclosure. My tiger rarely disturbs new plants except those that are in front of his den.

My frog/salamander substrate set up is:
1 inch of gravel on the bottom,
3 inches of plant soil (organic),
2 inches of shredded coconut fiber.

I've got two plants that have been in his enclosure for over a year. One of the them has never been disturbed and the other STILL has partially exposed roots and won't die.

There are also about 50 + earthworms in the substrate. They take care of the poop and dead plant matter and the occasional suicidal guppy. Actually I think that the tiger splashes them on to the land.

The tiger has the "beach" to hide under, the log and shelter under any of the plants, but 9 out of ten times I find him sunning himself on the beach. I'm pretty sure he thinks he is a frog!

LINK: http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMWjZm3aMmjC6A

As I said two of the plants have been in there for over a year, the others for a little over a month. I had to remove one that had gotten overly large and replace another that died for unknown reasons, probably to much moisture.

Hope that helped a little.
Sharon

 

[alan]

I keep my tiger salamander on ~10cm of composted bark mulch as substrate, changed every 2-3 months. I wouldn't skip the substrate changes, bad news in the long term. I have ivy & ferns in clay pots plunged into the substrate. Works well.

 

[jason]

In the past I've used things like the Exo Terra Jungle Earth mulch or Repta Bark, mixed with topsoil and coconut husk with a dash of peat moss for moisture retention. I found that the mulch made the soil too compacted for my tiger sals to burrow. Also, I stopped using the as much peat moss as I did because of all the posts on its pH (although I used some test strips and it seemed to be neutral, but still, it just gets nasty after a while.)

What I use now is Bed-A-Beast coconut husk fiber mixed with ESU Jungle Mix Lizard Litter. (Its a mix of sterilized virgin organic soil, fine grain sand, vermiculite, peat moss, orchid bark and green tree moss) with some moss bedding on top. It is so soft! If I where a salamander I would love to sleep in it. Now they burrow like crazy, and the burrows hold up decently too. I mixed two blocks of bed-a-beast and the whole bag of lizard litter and it filled like 5-6 inches of my 20gal long my two tiger sals are in and 5 in the plastic tub where my new sal is in quarantine.

Just to assure that the tigers always have an underground den, I made one out of some plastic lumber left over from the deck. That stuff is HEAVY, but its great cuz it will never rot or seep chemicals like treated wood will.

As far as plants, I have a little philodendron and a fern, they all seems to be doing quite well in the mixture. Everybody's happy!