River rocks - truly necessary?

Arpretty

Avid Member
There are a couple threads out here already asking about covering soil, but I'm wondering what people's opinions are on this.

I have 8 mounted potted plants. Soil is a mixture of sphagnum moss, moisture control potting soil, and vermiculite. I had covered potted plants with river rocks for my veiled, as I did see him occasionally munch on some dirt (when free ranging). BUT I did notice there was a bit of an issue with watering and creating residue under the rocks, which I didn't really like respiratory-wise. The rocks needed to be rinsed off periodically...I'm wondering with a panther, is covering potting soil really necessary???
 
I had covered potted plants with river rocks for my veiled, as I did see him occasionally munch on some dirt (when free ranging). BUT I did notice there was a bit of an issue with watering and creating residue under the rocks, which I didn't really like respiratory-wise. The rocks needed to be rinsed off periodically...I'm wondering with a panther, is covering potting soil really necessary???
Good question. My plants are covered with pebbles even though he hasn't explored more than halfway down the enclosure yet.

Residue... Hold da phone... Just checked—I don't have any, but the mister uses distilled H2O, and our tap has a filter that removes ninety-mumble percent of hard water salts.

Do you have very hard water? If it's just calcium salts, I don't expect there would be much of a problem, but other than having the residue tested (I have no idea what that would cost) IDK how one could tell.

On a few plants, we've had to remove a few pebbles to create a hole, water the plant, & replace the pebbles.
 
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