Top Soil and Coconut Coir?

dimitri

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Right now I am using a substrate of play sand mixed with coconut coir for my Russian. I am thinking of switching from this to top soil because it seems too dry to me. A lot of posts I have checked say that you should mix coconut coir with the soil. Is this necessary? Should I switch to top soil in the first place?
 

DeanS

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The sand is a terrible idea...I don't care what species is being housed. There is too big a risk of impaction to chance it. My favorite substrate combo is 4:2 mix of coconut bark:coco coir. It is the easiest to maintain...and is relatively simpler to control pests.
 

tortadise

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I concur with Dean. In huge title is says topsoil? So perhaps is this one of your options? If so, you will have the same result as sand, not as dry but dry enough. dean facilitated a good mixture. You can also add peat moss, or mulch to the mix of coco coir or coco bark.
 

dimitri

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What are the differences between top soil and coconut coir? I would prefer to use top soil because it is cheaper and I don't have many pet stores nearby, if you think that would be okay
 

dimitri

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I am trying to get the substrate to hold more moisture. I will definitely stop using sand.
 

dimitri

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I concur with Dean. In huge title is says topsoil? So perhaps is this one of your options? If so, you will have the same result as sand, not as dry but dry enough. dean facilitated a good mixture. You can also add peat moss, or mulch to the mix of coco coir or coco bark.
Is peat moss the same as sphagnum moss?
 

Tom

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If your substrate is too dry then you need to thicken it and add water.

It has been a trend lately to mix two or more substrates. I don't understand this and see no benefit when they all work fine by themselves.

Coir is no more expensive than topsoil if you are getting the right kind of each from the right place. The right top soil is difficult to find because they always add bat guano, perlite, and all sorts of other stuff to it. Finding plain, untreated top soil with nothing added is difficult and then you have to worry about what THAT individual batch is made of. "Topsoil" can be a mixture of just about anything.

If you go to any nursery they will have large blocks of coco coir for about $12. I was able to fill two 100 gallon tanks and a 135 gallon tank and still had a bunch left over. These three tanks are housing my 20 young russians when they are indoors and it works great. Put a lot in there and then hand pack it down. It gets less sticky and messy after a couple of weeks. I like it because it is all uniform and I know exactly what it is all made of.
 

dimitri

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If your substrate is too dry then you need to thicken it and add water.

It has been a trend lately to mix two or more substrates. I don't understand this and see no benefit when they all work fine by themselves.

Coir is no more expensive than topsoil if you are getting the right kind of each from the right place. The right top soil is difficult to find because they always add bat guano, perlite, and all sorts of other stuff to it. Finding plain, untreated top soil with nothing added is difficult and then you have to worry about what THAT individual batch is made of. "Topsoil" can be a mixture of just about anything.

If you go to any nursery they will have large blocks of coco coir for about $12. I was able to fill two 100 gallon tanks and a 135 gallon tank and still had a bunch left over. These three tanks are housing my 20 young russians when they are indoors and it works great. Put a lot in there and then hand pack it down. It gets less sticky and messy after a couple of weeks. I like it because it is all uniform and I know exactly what it is all made of.
Is there a list of nurseries that I can find anywhere? I live in a pretty rural place, there isn't much around. On the other hand, is there a list of things in top soil to avoid? There are a million different kinds at the hardware store nearby but the only pet shop nearby sells tiny amount of coco coir for insane prices. I'm expanding my tortoise's enclosure and I really can't afford to get enough coco coir from the pet store nearby. Any other recommendations on where it might be sold? Online, maybe? Thank you for telling me about how mixing doesn't help, because I was trying to understand why people do it and I was pretty confused on that.
 

Tom

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Any nursery that sells plants near you should have large blocks of coco coir. You won't likely find it at HD or Lowes, but at any real nursery.

Basically ANYTHING added to topsoil makes it unsuitable for tortoises. Perlite, vermiculite, any of those water retaining gels, bat or chicken guano, cow manure, etc... We are more or less talking about all the things they add to it. I recently bought some "planting soil" and it had jacaranda leaves in it that had not fully broken down. It still worked fine for my outdoor planter boxes, but I would have used that indoors for a substrate. You just never know what yard debris that company used to compost and make the "topsoil" you are putting your tortoise on. By contrast coco coir is always just plain ground coconut husk with nothing ever added to it and nothing else mixed in.
 

dimitri

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Okay, I will try my best to go with the coco coir, will it be a good substrate his whole life or just when he is young? I'm building an outdoor enclosure this summer, so I think that I will just go with normal dirt for that one, if that's okay. I'll look around for nurseries around here for the indoors though. Thank you!
 

Tom

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Okay, I will try my best to go with the coco coir, will it be a good substrate his whole life or just when he is young? I'm building an outdoor enclosure this summer, so I think that I will just go with normal dirt for that one, if that's okay. I'll look around for nurseries around here for the indoors though. Thank you!
I use the regular ground that is already there when I build outdoor enclosures.
 

Urbanmonkey

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What are the differences between top soil and coconut coir? I would prefer to use top soil because it is cheaper and I don't have many pet stores nearby, if you think that would be okay
Coconut coir can be found cheap in garden centres. £4 for 20 litres dry.
 

Urbanmonkey

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Spot clean daily. Plan to change substrate yearly tho i turn the substrate completely monthly.
 

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