Substrate worries

[Mombo]

Ok well I'm getting to the final stages of my enclosure and I'm getting worried about everything I've picked out haha.

So my plan currently is to do sphagnum peat moss, top soil, play sand, and a few blocks of eco-earth cause I have it. Mainly the first 3. More so top soil, peat moss mixture then some sand to help hold burrows.

The top picture is the sphagnum peat moss I picked. Ingredients say 100% sphagnum peat moss nothing else.

The second picture is the ingredients list on the top soil I picked. Does it look like a safe choice? I thought it was and then I got paranoid and wanted to make sure I wasn't going to poison my tegu.

My next worry is do I need to spray down the substrate with some reptile safe anti bug/mite spray when I put it in? I have about a week so I could spray it down a few times and mix it up spray it more. Or is that usually unnecessary?

So my questions - does my mix look good? Ingredients safe? Do I need to spray?

 

[Walter1]

Ok well I'm getting to the final stages of my enclosure and I'm getting worried about everything I've picked out haha.

So my plan currently is to do sphagnum peat moss, top soil, play sand, and a few blocks of eco-earth cause I have it. Mainly the first 3. More so top soil, peat moss mixture then some sand to help hold burrows.

The top picture is the sphagnum peat moss I picked. Ingredients say 100% sphagnum peat moss nothing else.

The second picture is the ingredients list on the top soil I picked. Does it look like a safe choice? I thought it was and then I got paranoid and wanted to make sure I wasn't going to poison my tegu.

My next worry is do I need to spray down the substrate with some reptile safe anti bug/mite spray when I put it in? I have about a week so I could spray it down a few times and mix it up spray it more. Or is that usually unnecessary?

So my questions - does my mix look good? Ingredients safe? Do I need to spray?

View attachment 11279 View attachment 11280

Don't know about spraying but peat sphag is safe.

 

[Mombo]

What do you think about the ingredients in pic 2? That is the top soil. Look tegu safe?

Did y'all just do the sphagnum moss and no top soil?

 

[dpjm]

The top soil is fine. The main thing about soil is that there are no chemical fertilizers added, but that looks neutral.

i would not worry about spraying the substrate, should be fine. There may be little bugs but the chance that they are the type that can harm your tegu is low. Mites, for instance, have to feed and they die off if there is nothing to eat. But most other soil insects are beneficial because they digest organic material, so don't spray.

 

[Mombo]

Awesome thanks!

 

[Brinven]

We are using a bioactive substrate from https://www.genesisexotics.com/ which is a mixture of, among other things, topsoil and sand. Also, the bugs these are a good thing and keep you from daily having to muck out the enclosure sounds like what you have is very similar, so you should be good.

Being able to burrow is a big deal for these guys, I know I could see a very positive influence on mine from this.

 

[Mombo]

I'm planning on having about 12in or so of substrate. So he should have plenty to dig in.

I'm not sure the wife is going to give the ok on the bugs in the substrate haha. She might though. Otherwise I'll just plan on changing out the substrate every once in a while.