How do you tell when it's time to clean it, and how often? Do you replace all substrate, clean the whole habitat, etc? I know they relieve themselves in their soaks, but what about the substrate? Thanks in advance!
Thalatte said:Well I just spot clean the substrate every other day. So I pick out any food bits, poop, or if I see he has peed then I will scoop that area and the surrounding bits to make sure I get it all. Then once a month I change the substrate of completely. Except in my box turtle enclosures as their soil is bio active so I never clean it or change it.
Moozilion said:Elsa often pees and poops in her food dish (blech ), so that gets washed daily. I seldom find her poop otherwise. I am developing bio active substrate that has pill bugs and earthworms in it, since they eat plant debris and poop. If I see a poop, I pick it out. About every 1-2 weeks I'll change out the substrate in the corner where she sleeps because she'll pee and poop there a good bit. I'm hoping the pill bugs and earthworms will put an end to much cleaning for me!
Thalatte said:I built the bio active substrate quite by accident. I had purchase a lot of earthworms and was feeding them two at a time to the turtles but didn't watch them eat them. Also fed them lots of mealworms in a shallow dish that some how escaped. One day when I was spot cleaning their tank I noticed there was hardly any left over veggies and when I dug through the soil I happened upon large earthworms and mealworm nests. They do a pretty good job of keeping everything clean and the soil no longer has as many wood mites as I had seen before and there is no mold. Plus if I need to leave for several days the turtles have a ready supply of food!