Coconut coir and loose coconut fiber same thing?

[jason g.]

Thank you I really appreciate all this help, sometimes I feel like a complete idiot, but I was only doing what I was told. Granted it was faulty info....

Don't feel that way everyone starts somewhere and you are doing the best thing anyone with a tort can do. Talk to veteran keepers and take there advice. That's what I did. Now I try to pass it on as accurate as I can and as nice as possible. Everyone has helped me from day one. I hate reading and I've read more in 3 months then I've read in 10 years. All about these guys. Alot of contradicting stuff but I look at keepers with full grown smooth torts and take all the advice I can get.

 

[KimandKarasi]

This is afore mentioned faulty info!!!

"Bedding (Substrate) can consist of Alfalfa (rabbit)
pellets, hay or aspen bark.  Do not use any type
of humidity-holding bark such as pine or cypress,
since the tortoise is unable to tolerate high humidity.
Humidity from a water bowl or moist bedding can
cause respiratory infections in Sulcata tortoises.  
Therefore, DO NOT keep a water bowl in the tank
with your tortoise, unless for brief periods to take a
drink. Bedding will also need changed regularly to
discard moist substrate and potential mildew from
urine." total BS...

 

[HLogic]

The info is not necessarily faulty. The problem with high humidity and arid grassland or xeric habitat tortoises is when the temperature is not maintained at high enough levels. Humidity + cold = tortoise issues. Humidity + heat = happy tortoises.

 

[Yvonne G]

coconut coir is sold in pet stores as "Bed-A-Beast" and comes in a compressed brick that you have to put into a 5 gallon bucket of water to get it to break apart.