Planting mediums...

Jerambis

New Member
I have always just used topsoil for the plants that will be in my chameleon cages. Is there another method though? I sort of tired scrubbing the dirt stains on the cage floor after just 1 day. It also worries me if a feeder goes and drinks some of the water, before it drains out of the cage, and gets some type of parasite from the dirt. Is Hydroton a possibility? Also is that water crystal stuff another possibility to plant my plants in?
 
what i do sometimes is take out the first 3-4 inches of the soil of my plants. then i will put in bigger pond type rocks or hydron will work to although its kinda small and for some bigger chams they might be able to eat it. under the rocks i will use a light soil mix with larger rocks in it as well as some kinda soil just so i get good dranage and my plants dont stay to wet all the time.
 
I guess I don't understand the problem.
Soil is the best medium for the plants we use in cham enclosures.
I use a sifted mix of peat, topsoil and supersoil.
My cham eats it (why I sift) and I believe this is a necessary and natural part of his diet.

-Brad
 
Is it possible to plant the tree just in hydroton though?

yes it is possible, if you plan on adding nutrients to the water that you are feeding. If you are going all hydroton then you will need to feed the plants and they will need to be watered 3 to 4 times a day with this nutrient solution. Your better off with 1/2 soil 1/2 hydroton
 
for your issue, you just nee to have a filtering medium at the bottom, try a mixture of large and small hydroton, or the cheaper method is gravel or river rocks. on top of this you can add a layer of coco coir or profit disks as an extra filtration, and then on top of that you can add soil

I don't know why your using top soil however, when potting soil is like a dollar more and 5 times more effective
 
One reason would be that it's difficult to find soil commercially that does not contain fertilizers and vermiculite or perlite.
My cham eats soil regularly so I mix my own potting medium which does contain some topsoil.

-Brad
 
Thanks for that idea dank melon that sounds good. The reason I use top soil is it does not have anything harmful my chameleon can eat in it, pretty much what brad said.
 
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