Haylizzie
New Member
Those who have organic top soil in your indoor enclosure, do you have any issues with bugs? Have you had experience with certain brands being cleaner? Where’s the best place to buy it?
Soil for indoor enclosure
- Thread starter Haylizzie
- Start date
Soil should not be used. Coconut coir or orchard/fir bark is recommended
The bugs are usually springtails or phorid flies. They are harmless detrivores and they come from the surrounding environment to colonize the favorable area that you have created for them. You will get those with any substrate. You can boil, bake or freeze the substrate to kill them off, but they will always keep coming back. I just ignore them and let them clean my enclosures. Some people pay money for these bugs and introduce them on purpose to make "bio-active" enclosures. You got them for free!
Bought in a bag soil from the store is not safe to use and is not a good substrate. Check this out for more info on that:
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The_Four_Toed_Edward
Well-Known Member
And these both are pretty much bug free if you buy the heat treated kind.
Just as a point of conversation, I have never seen any type of substrate come from the store with bugs already in it. These enclosure bugs come from the surrounding environment. It won't matter one bit if the substrate was heat treated before it went into the enclosure. It is the warmth, humidity, moisture, food, and a place to live that brings them into our enclosures.
The_Four_Toed_Edward
Well-Known Member
Well, here in Finland there are soils that come with bugs in them, probably depends on the process. But you are right, even though there are no bugs in the soil to begin with, chances are that they will come from somewhere. But as you said, there are beneficial bugs and some bugs that don't do any harm. The only bugs that seem to be interested in my tortoises enclosure are fungus gnats, unfortunately 😅
