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Your favourite substrate?

I'm currently using Carefresh. Aspen would be easy for me to get cheap in bulk, but my last two bags (one from Blue Seal, one from Agway) were infested with wood mites and put me off of it for a while. Carefresh is a little more expensive (though I can order it in bulk online), I do like the look of it and it's very absorbent. I don't find it too dusty compared to the aspen, but my snakes do have a tendency to get it in their water dishes, usually right after I've changed them. :nope:
 
I use aspen, paper towels, and newspaper in different enclosures.

Does anyone use or have experience with cypress?
 
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I started off using cypress mulch. Although I think it looks better than aspen, I found that it always seems to be too humid, to the point of leaving condensation on the tub/tank. Aspen is also way more absorbant. I prefer shredded aspen over chipped/shaved. Although it costs more, it is less dusty and feels softer. I've never tried Carefresh, but I bet you could come up with some pretty cool looking setups with the different colors that it's available in.

Mitch
 
I just switched brands of aspen because the stuff we bought before went up in price and the bags looked only half-filled. It's chips instead of little shreds, but Stig doesn't seem to mind now that he's used to it. He was pretty active when I changed it last night though, climbing over all the things and then tunneling through it when he realized it wasn't dangerous. XD
 
I actually use kiln-dried pine. I can buy 4 cubic feet of it for $6. I was using aspen for my snakes and pine for my mice until I found a thread on a different forum about pine. A couple well respected and experienced guys said that kiln-dried pine is perfectly safe and that they have been using it for a longf long time. I messaged one of the guys just to make sure and he took a look at the particular brand that I buy and said it would work fine. So I decided to try it out and I've been using it for about 8-10 months and no problems at all. It's so cheap and easy considering that I have a 39 gallon trash can filled with it right there for my mice, so I can clean and refill the tubs easily.

I tried aspen, I don't like the smell of it and it's about 2.5 times more expensive than pine.
I tried newsprint and I just don't like that they can't slither around as easily. They just kinda slide around. And you can't spot clean with newsprint.
 
I was using news paper in my bins until the beginning of this month. When I had tanks I would use shredding aspen or coconut fibers (eco earth). I liked the aspen better just because when the snakes would burrow their tunnels would stay in place. They would have a whole network of tunnels between their hides and water bowl and didn't even have to come above ground to get to each lol.

When I moved them to bins, I figured it's dark so they would feel like they were underground anyway. But no. They still would burrow and go underneath the newspaper. So in order to get a snake out I would have to take everything out of the bin just to lift the newspaper up and figure out which layer they were under lol. I decided to get them a bad of aspen and that is what I am currently using. I can also use it for my hamsters and they will probably go through it faster than the snakes. I rarely change the aspen unless it gets really messy. I just spot clean.
 
Aspen, but buy it from the little critters department. It is the same except the title, comes in bigger bags and is much cheaper.
 
I use Eco Earth and have been for just the last couple of months. It seems to hold humidity better than aspen, but is not too moist. Humidity seems easier for me to maintain, my baby corns love to burrow in it, plus I prefer the look of it over other options. That said, I've been VERY interested in the bio-active substrate and even have a large exo terra ready to convert. My biggest concern right now is how to provide belly heat in that environment. It seems that a UTH would not get through those lower layers.
 
CaseyH said:
I use Eco Earth and have been for just the last couple of months. It seems to hold humidity better than aspen, but is not too moist. Humidity seems easier for me to maintain, my baby corns love to burrow in it, plus I prefer the look of it over other options. That said, I've been VERY interested in the bio-active substrate and even have a large exo terra ready to convert. My biggest concern right now is how to provide belly heat in that environment. It seems that a UTH would not get through those lower layers.
Click to expand...

There are other ways besides UTH to provide heat. They may not be as popular with corn snakes. You can use a heat lamp. However you should still measure the surface temps were the lamp is and have something to control the lamp like a dimmer. It will be hard to keep humidity up with a lamp though since they are known to dry out the air.

There are those UTH's that say they can be put inside the tank. I have one of those but have yet to actually use it.

There are other ways to provide heat. Like heat panels. But I haven't had any experience with those.
 
CaseyH said:
I use Eco Earth and have been for just the last couple of months. It seems to hold humidity better than aspen, but is not too moist. Humidity seems easier for me to maintain, my baby corns love to burrow in it, plus I prefer the look of it over other options. That said, I've been VERY interested in the bio-active substrate and even have a large exo terra ready to convert. My biggest concern right now is how to provide belly heat in that environment. It seems that a UTH would not get through those lower layers.
Click to expand...

Heat? Simple.. use a low wattage bulb with a raised surface. Look into "retes stacks"
 
I have been trying out a shredded cardboard product called Boxo, made of recycled boxes. So far I quite like it. It is light and soft, and holds a burrow well. We use Aspen for my daughter's snake but any kind of wood dust/sawdust bothers my nose and chest--allergies I guess--so I have been trying this other product for my own. Anyone else using something similar?
 
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