UK Coco Coir Substrate

sbwalker5

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
79
Location (City and/or State)
Sheffield, UK
This weekend I finally got my hands on some coco coir for my baby Marginated tortoise's indoor enclosure.

I live in England (South Yorkshire), and apart from different sellers on Amazon, where sometimes it's not 100% certain what you are purchasing, I had struggled to find coco coir anywhere until now.

For the 2 months I have had Douglas, we have used ProRep Tortoise Life substrate, which is a 50/50 mix of topsoil and sand, with some small limestone pieces. This has been OK, but found that it dries very quickly, and I was also worried about possible impaction through eating some of the sand within substrate, when it sticks to his food.

However, whilst browsing at Pets at Home the other day, I came across this in the reptile section...
Coco Fibre Brick
It's pretty cheap as well - £3 for a 650g brick, or two for £5!
It apparently makes up to 9 litres of substrate. I added about 4 litres of warm water to the brick within a bucket, and let it soak in for 10 minutes. I kept about a quarter of the Tortoise Life and mixed with the coconut coir, and this was plenty to fill his 2 x 4 enclosure!

Already it noticeably keeps the moisture a lot better and looks a lot nicer (not too important, but it helps!).

Hopefully this helps anyone in the UK looking to find some coco coir substrate.

I also picked up a few new improvements for his enclosure, including a spider plant, new water dish, and some more rocks. Below is the enclosure now..

IMG_5121.jpg


And next is the enclusure when I was using the Tortoise Life - it's noticeably drier..

34BFE794-CF2A-48FD-B46A-6EAB4CF95993.jpg
 

itzSammeh

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2013
Messages
7
sbwalker5 said:
This weekend I finally got my hands on some coco coir for my baby Marginated tortoise's indoor enclosure.

I live in England (South Yorkshire), and apart from different sellers on Amazon, where sometimes it's not 100% certain what you are purchasing, I had struggled to find coco coir anywhere until now.

For the 2 months I have had Douglas, we have used ProRep Tortoise Life substrate, which is a 50/50 mix of topsoil and sand, with some small limestone pieces. This has been OK, but found that it dries very quickly, and I was also worried about possible impaction through eating some of the sand within substrate, when it sticks to his food.

However, whilst browsing at Pets at Home the other day, I came across this in the reptile section...
Coco Fibre Brick
It's pretty cheap as well - £3 for a 650g brick, or two for £5!
It apparently makes up to 9 litres of substrate. I added about 4 litres of warm water to the brick within a bucket, and let it soak in for 10 minutes. I kept about a quarter of the Tortoise Life and mixed with the coconut coir, and this was plenty to fill his 2 x 4 enclosure!

Already it noticeably keeps the moisture a lot better and looks a lot nicer (not too important, but it helps!).

Hopefully this helps anyone in the UK looking to find some coco coir substrate.

I also picked up a few new improvements for his enclosure, including a spider plant, new water dish, and some more rocks. Below is the enclosure now..

IMG_5121.jpg


And next is the enclusure when I was using the Tortoise Life - it's noticeably drier..

34BFE794-CF2A-48FD-B46A-6EAB4CF95993.jpg


Thanks for this!

My local reptile shop has just closed down so i will take a look.

Mytort seems to like his top soil without sand at the moment. But cocnut coir would be good to have again!
 

sbwalker5

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
79
Location (City and/or State)
Sheffield, UK
Yea my idea was to possibly have a mix of coco coir and top soil. I bought a massive bag of top soil, but the coco coir filled the enclosure on its own anyway! I was struggling to keep humidity with an open-top enclosure, and the coco coir definitely seems to help!
 

tortoise Inc

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2014
Messages
48
Location (City and/or State)
New Zealand
I to was using 50/50 sand/soil as advised by the breeder, read your post and have now been out today and brought some bricks of coco coir. Will be up grading my table also, thanks.
You enclosure look great and a lot of fun for the torty :)
 

Sandra

Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2013
Messages
50
Brilliant .... My little boy seems so much happier ... Thanks for your thread it makes thing so much better having forums like this and people like yourself that post so much useful info ... Thank you again
 

Urbanmonkey

New Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2018
Messages
13
Location (City and/or State)
Derby uk
This weekend I finally got my hands on some coco coir for my baby Marginated tortoise's indoor enclosure.

I live in England (South Yorkshire), and apart from different sellers on Amazon, where sometimes it's not 100% certain what you are purchasing, I had struggled to find coco coir anywhere until now.

For the 2 months I have had Douglas, we have used ProRep Tortoise Life substrate, which is a 50/50 mix of topsoil and sand, with some small limestone pieces. This has been OK, but found that it dries very quickly, and I was also worried about possible impaction through eating some of the sand within substrate, when it sticks to his food.

However, whilst browsing at Pets at Home the other day, I came across this in the reptile section...
Coco Fibre Brick
It's pretty cheap as well - £3 for a 650g brick, or two for £5!
It apparently makes up to 9 litres of substrate. I added about 4 litres of warm water to the brick within a bucket, and let it soak in for 10 minutes. I kept about a quarter of the Tortoise Life and mixed with the coconut coir, and this was plenty to fill his 2 x 4 enclosure!

Already it noticeably keeps the moisture a lot better and looks a lot nicer (not too important, but it helps!).

Hopefully this helps anyone in the UK looking to find some coco coir substrate.

I also picked up a few new improvements for his enclosure, including a spider plant, new water dish, and some more rocks. Below is the enclosure now..

IMG_5121.jpg


And next is the enclusure when I was using the Tortoise Life - it's noticeably drier..

34BFE794-CF2A-48FD-B46A-6EAB4CF95993.jpg
Wilko sells it in the garden section during planting season. HUGE bag £4.
 

Gemspink

New Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2019
Messages
20
Location (City and/or State)
West Sussex
Hi I I've got 2 hermann tortoises and just put some some top soil down and coco coir is that ok x
 

Tarz

Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2021
Messages
22
Location (City and/or State)
United Kingdom
Hi I I've got 2 hermann tortoises and just put some some top soil down and coco coir is that ok x
Hi I read alot of forums on here that say not to use top soil. I'm using coco coir on its own keeping it slightly damp. You could always add fine orchid bark as dry top layer
 

Suey

Active Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2020
Messages
156
Location (City and/or State)
England
Hi I’m in the uk and I find Swell reptiles online are brilliant, you can find everything you need with quick delivery.
 

Mark C

Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2022
Messages
38
Location (City and/or State)
UK
This weekend I finally got my hands on some coco coir for my baby Marginated tortoise's indoor enclosure.

I live in England (South Yorkshire), and apart from different sellers on Amazon, where sometimes it's not 100% certain what you are purchasing, I had struggled to find coco coir anywhere until now.

For the 2 months I have had Douglas, we have used ProRep Tortoise Life substrate, which is a 50/50 mix of topsoil and sand, with some small limestone pieces. This has been OK, but found that it dries very quickly, and I was also worried about possible impaction through eating some of the sand within substrate, when it sticks to his food.

However, whilst browsing at Pets at Home the other day, I came across this in the reptile section...
Coco Fibre Brick
It's pretty cheap as well - £3 for a 650g brick, or two for £5!
It apparently makes up to 9 litres of substrate. I added about 4 litres of warm water to the brick within a bucket, and let it soak in for 10 minutes. I kept about a quarter of the Tortoise Life and mixed with the coconut coir, and this was plenty to fill his 2 x 4 enclosure!

Already it noticeably keeps the moisture a lot better and looks a lot nicer (not too important, but it helps!).

Hopefully this helps anyone in the UK looking to find some coco coir substrate.

I also picked up a few new improvements for his enclosure, including a spider plant, new water dish, and some more rocks. Below is the enclosure now..

IMG_5121.jpg


And next is the enclusure when I was using the Tortoise Life - it's noticeably drier..

34BFE794-CF2A-48FD-B46A-6EAB4CF95993.jpg
Looks brilliant
 
Top