# Paper towels as Substrate?



## Johnnydr (Dec 8, 2011)

Hey Guys,

Recently I've had a gnat problem, and they were especially flourishing in the tegu cage, so i cleaned all my herps out and replaced them with paper towels temporarily to give the adult gnats enough time to die.

I know tegus are a burrowing species, but my guy seems to act no different with paper towels as a substrate. He shreds it, burrows under it, and moves it around. And it's not a single layer or anything.....his tank looks kind of like a big, shredded, puffy mess. 

The humidity in that room is pretty high to begin with and he is eating more and more and growing every day.....and I do enjoy the simplicity of the paper towels right now.

Can anyone figure a reason this would be a bad idea? I have two big bags of untreated soil laying around, I just haven't gotten to using it yet.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
John


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## kellen.watkins (Dec 8, 2011)

Just the burrowing part. Kinda hard to imagine a tegu in paper towels.


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## TeguBuzz (Dec 8, 2011)

On a side note, can we see some pics of your AA? I'm sure he's grown a lot since the last pics yo posted a month or so back!


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## Johnnydr (Dec 8, 2011)

Check out the vid I posted a week or so ago!

http://www.youtube.com/user/yosoyjohn10688?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/GjNFqhPlUGo


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## TeguBuzz (Dec 8, 2011)

Damn Johnny! He sure has grown. I'll friend you on YouTube, keep track of the vids you post and all. Check out Sobek!


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## Tegasaurus (Dec 8, 2011)

Johnnydr said:


> Hey Guys,
> 
> Recently I've had a gnat problem, and they were especially flourishing in the tegu cage, so i cleaned all my herps out and replaced them with paper towels temporarily to give the adult gnats enough time to die.
> 
> ...



I do like the idead. However, there might be 2 things I can think of that might be an issue. One is humidity. Paper towels are very absorbant. I do not know if they would lessen the humidity around the animal. It might make for a dryer environment overall..this is just a thought. The only way to knwo would be to put a humidity aguge in there and check with and without paper towels. Also, a potential fire hazard. tegus like to move stuff around.. I do not know what your set up is, but hot lights shining down on paper towels for hours might not be a good idea.

Rob


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## Johnnydr (Dec 8, 2011)

My heat source shines down on the basking site, which is a log. He tend to either burrow below the log at night or away during the day if he's too hot. i have yet to encounter problems with my "fluffy" paper towel substrate, but I do know it's not normally practiced. I can't imagine doing this when he's an adult, but as a juvie I'm looking for downsides and haven't found any. he doesn't seemed stressed by anything......daily movements/disturbances, substrate, and any human contact seems to be tolerated without any without fear. He is very well adapted for captivity it seems.


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