[markhill]

As some of you know my BD hadnt poo'ed for about 14 days now, well I was taking out the sand to replace it with lino and put her into a tub, while she was in there she did the biggest BD turd i have ever seen, upon further inspection with rubber gloves and a stick I found a hard compacted lump of sand, needless to say i was very lucky she passed it, (it was about 1.5 inches long and 1/2 inch wide).
The sand i used was calci-sand up until about 3 months ago and she was fine, i then changed to play sand and she had problems, so i am blaming the sand as everything else is fine.
So at the risk of another big substrate debate, i now dont like sand and will never again recommend it to anyone.
lino rules

 

[madphish]

how about sandpaper??

easy as lino, less impaction risk, looks much better?

 

[tombraider]

Would sand paper not be too harsh on the reps tummies and any other parts that make contact with the floor?

 

[bjherp]

The sand i used was calci-sand up until about 3 months ago and she was fine, i then changed to play sand and she had problems, so i am blaming the sand as everything else is fine.
So at the risk of another big substrate debate, i now dont like sand and will never again recommend it to anyone.
lino rules

Calci-sand is designed so it can be passed through the reptiles system and is digested fairly easily,

Using play sand is not advised with any reptile species, this can be injested and is not digestable. This will lead to impaction, which is what your BD had.

Good to hear that the BD should now be ok, but let this be a message to people who still advise play sand.

We have not used it ever and never would due to these issues.

Likewise beech chips are hard wood square and sharp, need i say more we would nevver use these either.

Further more as the sand is very fine, it can lodge under scales and cause irritaion something i have seen several times in the past.

Get on the forums and pass the word around.

Jerry Cole
Reptilekeeping.com

 

[BADGERS MUM]

glad he went,was the same with my leo,i got him straight off the sand and it was calci sand,i just wouldnt risk it ever again as it really worried me,good luck in the future tho and good on you for the lino its better all round

 

[Lewb]

Calci-sand is designed so it can be passed through the reptiles system and is digested fairly easily,

Using play sand is not advised with any reptile species, this can be injested and is not digestable. This will lead to impaction, which is what your BD had.

Good to hear that the BD should now be ok, but let this be a message to people who still advise play sand.

We have not used it ever and never would due to these issues.

I would have to disagree here.. calci-sand is designed to clump up when its wet, and this is exactly what it does when ingested. It is not in any way digestable, and causes very major impactions compared to finer sand such as playsand (washed and sifted) which will not be digested but will not cause such bad impactions.

 

[bjherp]

I would have to disagree here.. calci-sand is designed to clump up when its wet, and this is exactly what it does when ingested. It is not in any way digestable, and causes very major impactions compared to finer sand such as playsand (washed and sifted) which will not be digested but will not cause such bad impactions.

I suppose it is sometijng that we should agree to disagree on,

I have been using it for over 20 years and have never an impaction issue, this was the whole reason why we started using calci sand as substrate all those years ago, as it is digestable.

Play sand is in no way digestable, leopard geckos should not have humid / wet enviroments. I know it clumps when wet as we use it for nesting substrate on our Fiji's.

If you were to feed a ball of compact calci sand to a gecko i could see the issue, but as this would never happen i don't see the problem.

In my experience i have delbt with dozens of cases when geckos have impactions due to sand / play sand, but never even with the 100's that i have bred i had issues with calci-sand.

Play sand is not only not digestable, but it is also that fine it wedges between scales and causes infections, which i have also seen dozens of times.

 

[Becky Wheeler]

Personally i really hate Calci-sand, When i was new to Reps, I started with a leo, Was advised to use Calci-sand. Within 4 weeks my little Leo was dead, Her tummy very swollen, Cause of death was Impact.

I then turned to Beardies, Used kitchen paper for the first year of there lives and then used Argos Playsand. And (Touch wood) to this day have not had any Impact problems with any?

Now, I have just got hold of some free Lyno and have decided to use this instead of sand. Reson, Sand is just too bloody messy, it takes me ages to siv out all the crap and even then your find more crap thats been buried by my dragon.

Another reason, It makes the viv incredibly Heavy and if you wanna move it, then good luck, as i found out! lol.

With Lyno, When ever they've poo'ed i can just use tissue and a disinfectant and hey presto, job done.

Only disadvantage, two of my girls are gravid every so often and of course they need sand or something so they can dig and lay. So will have to get a container of some sort filled with sand and plave it on one end.

 

[groovy chick]

Glad to hear your beardie went to the loo

 

[welshgaz]

I'd also go with play sand being much better for a dragon... I've put calci sand in water and it clumps, once dry it forms a hard stone which is what the impaction above sounds like. Play sand doesn't do that but stays suspended inside the water which (i think) theoretically should be much easier to pass through....

 

[markhill]

I'd also go with play sand being much better for a dragon... I've put calci sand in water and it clumps, once dry it forms a hard stone which is what the impaction above sounds like. Play sand doesn't do that but stays suspended inside the water which (i think) theoretically should be much easier to pass through....

she was on calci-sand for 8 months, then i changed it to playsand from argos and she impacted, so i am not using sand again, if in the future i had to use some sand i would go for calci-sand again because it didnt cause the problem, playsand did.