TL;DR wanting to change my setup to something naturalistic, wondering about living peat moss as a bedding. Would it be too wet?
My juvenile red foot Clyde is currently living in a 90x45x30 cm which is now only a layer of paper towels, an MVB basking light, a CHE and a dry hide with papertowels for him to burrow in because of a recent infliction of shell fungus (very mild, it's only been 3 days and it's as good as gone) so he's kind of in a "hospital" setting right now, and it made me think of all the ways I could set up his enclosure! I really like the "naturalistic" aspects of a tortoise setup, and would really like to sort of recreate the south american rainforest in which they live in. When I first got him I used a thick layer of Exo terra rainforest substrate, then I switched to a blend of fine sand and plantation soil I think, it holds humidity pretty well and doesn't dry out too fast, but all that was removed when the shell fungus incident happened. Now I'm thinking of adding the plantation soil/sand mixture back into the tank but as a bottom layer, and then add the rainforest mulch on top so only the bottom layer holds the moisture, but I'm also wondering about a layer of living peat moss?
(Just as a note, the reason why he got shell fungus/shell rot was because I kept it so humid that the humidifier eventually kept building up water in the tube and it dripped down into the substrate. Lesson definitely learned.)
My juvenile red foot Clyde is currently living in a 90x45x30 cm which is now only a layer of paper towels, an MVB basking light, a CHE and a dry hide with papertowels for him to burrow in because of a recent infliction of shell fungus (very mild, it's only been 3 days and it's as good as gone) so he's kind of in a "hospital" setting right now, and it made me think of all the ways I could set up his enclosure! I really like the "naturalistic" aspects of a tortoise setup, and would really like to sort of recreate the south american rainforest in which they live in. When I first got him I used a thick layer of Exo terra rainforest substrate, then I switched to a blend of fine sand and plantation soil I think, it holds humidity pretty well and doesn't dry out too fast, but all that was removed when the shell fungus incident happened. Now I'm thinking of adding the plantation soil/sand mixture back into the tank but as a bottom layer, and then add the rainforest mulch on top so only the bottom layer holds the moisture, but I'm also wondering about a layer of living peat moss?
(Just as a note, the reason why he got shell fungus/shell rot was because I kept it so humid that the humidifier eventually kept building up water in the tube and it dripped down into the substrate. Lesson definitely learned.)