woodmites and a new substrate for gora

worldeater · Respected Member Joined: Mar 06, 2008 Posts: 590

hi all, my tank has cypress mulch mixed with coconut coir (brick stuff) i got wood mites, BAD thousands of em. Gora hates em, she won't burrow she stays on her basking site or the bare wood in one corner, basicly i leave her tank open and she just goes in to bask or drink water. this is bad as my room is only 50% humidity. so i'm overhauling the tank. taking out all the cypress mix and cleaning the tank.

1st: i'll be using a 10% bleach/water solution. for the walls and floor of the tank. can i let this air dry or do i rinse it and soak up the water? the tank is 8' x3'6" and like 2' tall its a pain to get in it's actually a cheap boa tank laid on it's back. made of plywood. basicly a peice of crap. but untill i can afford a nice tank it's all i got. how do i get the bleach out of the tank after i've killed the mites? will it be ok to air dry? if so, how long? as this could be a potential health hazard for my girl i will not move foreward on this untill i get some answers on how to do this the right way.

and now, my new substrate: Decomposed granite!
i read on the pro-exotics page that they've been keeping high humidity burrowing monitors on this stuff with great results, they were using cypress mulch before. but the granite actually seems to preform better.
it's very soft, holds moisture, and clumps well enough to hold a burrow. my choosing this is based off my mite problem as well. Mites eat wood. Granite is not wood. Mites don't eat granite!

here is a little thingie on there new substrate:
http://www.proexotics.com/FAQ2.html#19a

what are your thoughts? i got this stuff locally once i get an answer on the sterilization process i'll be moving this stuff into her inclosure. then in a few days i'll give my (and more importantly her) thoughts on this stuff as a tegu substrate.

also last but not least i have a few large peices of eucalyptus bark that i want to keep as hides. to be placed on top of the granite. they are mite infested, what temp do i bake and for how long??

thanks folks.
_________________
1.1.0 Arg B/W Tegu Joker n Groxy
1.0.0 Australian Water Dragon "Spyro"
1.0.0 Red Eared Slider "Turdy"
0.1.0 White Dwarf Hamster "MiMi"
1.1.0 Black&Albino Kingsnakes "Pearl & Hannibal"

txrepgirl · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:54 am Post subject:

Hi worldeater.Sorry it took me so long to read your post.What I recommend is get some cheap but strong vinegar.Mix one part of vinegar and 5 parts of water.Than clean the enclosure.Make sure you have some windows open because when you breath that stuff in it will burn your eyes and burns your nose a bit ( the same thing will happen if you use bleach ).I clean every thing ( enclosure,decoration,water bins...) with vinegar.It kills every thing and it's not harmfull like bleach.With bleach the fumes will stay in the wood a lot longer and it would be hard to rinse it out really good.With the vinegar you just clean it,try to rinse it of a little bit and let it air dry.You can put her back in the enclosure if you put your head in her enclosure and you don't smell the vinecar any more.I'm sorry I don't know how long it would take to air dry it out because it is a big enclosure and it is out of wood.But what you can do is if you have a small standing up fan you can put it in there or in front of it.That might help to dry it out faster.Hope that helps.Please keep us posted on how it went.Thanks.

worldeater · Respected Member Joined: Mar 06, 2008 Posts: 590

i ended up calling varnyard, last night i steriliazed the tank with bleach solution, let it dry sprayed pure water, let it dry more water then dried again, no bleach smell (i was actually inside the inclosure most of the process. i have a large fan, so i was able to dry it out in less than an hour, so the whole process only took me about 4 hours, start to finish

got rid of my cypress, so far this granite seems really cool.

it strangly holds moisture extremly well. not like sand or gravel. very good burrow holding ability. extreme insulation. with the moisture, the granite stay very cool. it is also very malliable, allmost like a loose clay. i can't wait to see what gora does with it.
_________________
1.1.0 Arg B/W Tegu Joker n Groxy
1.0.0 Australian Water Dragon "Spyro"
1.0.0 Red Eared Slider "Turdy"
0.1.0 White Dwarf Hamster "MiMi"
1.1.0 Black&Albino Kingsnakes "Pearl & Hannibal"

txrepgirl · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:55 am Post subject:

I'm glad thinks worked out for you.Please let us know how gora likes it.Thanks.

worldeater · Respected Member Joined: Mar 06, 2008 Posts: 590

lol, i tried to change her name, i really tried, i said "i can't call her grox! she's a girl!" but after a few days of calling her groxy and being unable to call her gora, i relented. her name is grox, i can't fight it. she responds to grox or groxy and doesn't even look up when i say gora. so grox it is lol.

i want to make sure she likes it before i lock her in her tank again. i came home last night, and two perfect little burrows were dug under the eucalyptus bark hides i laid down flat over the granite, and it was covered with tracks, little dug out spots and tail ditches. so it lookes like she spent at least some of her time yesterday while i was here at work playing in the new substrate.

i put her big halogen flood back in, the one that gets her basking spot into the 120's but as all her substrate is in like a 3'x4' area (still testing it) her basking spot has significantly increased in size, allowing for an easyly chosen gradient. (only a foot to the left the surface temp drops to 105. i did this cause of how insulated the granite seems. i wanted to bring the ambient temp up to see if i could warm up the granite a bit. get it to keep heat in like the cypress did.

i was also thinking of lining the top back with rolled up beach towels and keeping those soaked with water. may help get my humidity up higher.

god i love my temp gun. i wish i had a humidity gun!
_________________
1.1.0 Arg B/W Tegu Joker n Groxy
1.0.0 Australian Water Dragon "Spyro"
1.0.0 Red Eared Slider "Turdy"
0.1.0 White Dwarf Hamster "MiMi"
1.1.0 Black&Albino Kingsnakes "Pearl & Hannibal"

txrepgirl · Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:23 am Post subject:

don't feel bad.I know how that goes.I saw a add on craigslist for a frilled dragon a few months ago and he/she looked really tame on those pictures ( a boy was holding him/her ).So we decided we wanted to get it.It took a few days before we were able to get him/her.They told us that it was a female.So we wanted to name her Venus ( we had to change the name from our veiled chameleon from venus to casper because it turned out to be a male,too

).When we went to pick her up we thought that she was VERY big for a female.I looked at the vent part and sure enough it was a male.I still call him Venus

,poor thing.I like the name Ceasar but Venus just keeps coming out when I talk to him .So your not alone.