# Mouldy EcoEarth?



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

I use a variety of different substrates for my snakes, depending on the species, but have never used ecoearth, so this is my first time experimenting with it since getting a T. I watered the block, then oven baked the batch - twice, for a couple of hours each time. It didn't fully dry out, only the very top layer turned dusty, everything else underneath stayed a little moist to the touch.

So, checking in on Berk (GBB) tonight, and I noticed that there's a slight fluffy growth all over the substrate. Great, mould. It's only been in there since Thursday. I understand mould can be fatal for T's, so it looks like I'm going to have to move Berk out of there and replace the substrate - I was hoping to avoid any sort of physical interaction with him for at least a few months, and I've no idea how I'm going to get him into a cup :blush:

Cant say I'm too pleased about this, and not impressed with ecoearth. Giving serious consideration to swapping the ecoearth to oven-baked orchid bark instead, since I know what I'm doing with that and have never had mould problems with it in the time Ive kept snakes. Alternatively, dry vermiculite.

Does anyone use either of these for their T's?


----------



## Lushmush (Apr 26, 2013)

I use bio-active substrate for both my Snakes and my Tarantulas, it prevents mould and any left over food or poop gets broken down too, which is a bonus.
My bio-active substrate basically consists of 30% eco-earth, 30% organic peat free soil, 30% leaves and/or orchid bark chippings and then 10% bugs such as worms, springtails and various species of tropical and native woodlice, although I'd be careful if you're collecting anything from your garden in case they have been around insecticides ect... 

You can also purchase bio-active substrate already completed for you from eBay and also dartfrog.co.uk.

Oh and perhaps better ventilation would also help the problem?


----------



## mrkeda (Nov 6, 2012)

Is it definitely mould? I thought I saw some mould in one of my Gbbs tubs, turns out it was webbing :blush: Felt like a right tit I did :censor:. 
How dries the substrate? I've not heard of mould appearing on bone dry eco earth myself, that's not to say it doesn't happen just because I've not seen it ofc.


----------



## AilsaM (May 18, 2011)

I've used eco earth sinxe starting with spiders last year and never once had mould grow on it, I use boiling water straight from kettle when making it up and then just stick it in a rub until needed, I also use it in my snakes moist hides sometimes if I've run out of moss, only thing I have had mould grow on is sticks/twigs when I first started but I then changed to plastic plants etc.


----------



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

mrkeda said:


> Is it definitely mould? I thought I saw some mould in one of my Gbbs tubs, turns out it was webbing :blush: Felt like a right tit I did :censor:.
> How dries the substrate? I've not heard of mould appearing on bone dry eco earth myself, that's not to say it doesn't happen just because I've not seen it ofc.


Pretty sure it's mould, I don't see how he can have lightly covered the whole floor in fine webbing in 4 days, but I wont swear to it. I think the problem is that despite oven baking the substrate twice, it never got bone dry - only the top layer completely dried out (light brown) and the rest stayed slightly moist (darker brown). My fault, should have baked it in smaller batches to fully dry it right out, but I also figured you'd be able to keep ecoearth at a variety of moisture levels without it developing mould. Not impressed with it to be honest. Think I'll stick to what I know.

As for ventilation, well, I thought I had ample. I mean, it's a glass tank, so I'm a little restricted in adding through/cross ventilation, but the lid has a large circular vent in one corner (directly above the water bowl) and I added (drilled) lots of holes to the opposite side, taking up about a third of the lid space. More required, clearly.

Job for tomorrow - figure out how to move a skittish lightening fast T into a tub without it jumping on my face.


----------



## Mrchancellor87 (Jan 10, 2012)

Am I the only one who just adds bog standard cold water to eco earth then chuck it in the tanks? 

You dont need to use boiling water nor cook it in the oven a couple of times. These tarantulas do live outside in the real world, which im sure contains mold and other bits.

You should be able to have damp eco earth in a tank without it molding for longer than 4 days.

Ventilation would help reduce the mold. Dry eco earth would also reduce it.

Has the GBB been fed, if so, have you removed the bolus?

Have you added any other materials in there, like twigs from outside or anything?

GBBs are prolific webbers so it could have laid alot of web.


----------



## mrkeda (Nov 6, 2012)

Se7enS1ns said:


> Pretty sure it's mould, *I don't see how he can have lightly covered the whole floor in fine webbing in 4 days*, but I wont swear to it. I think the problem is that despite oven baking the substrate twice, it never got bone dry - only the top layer completely dried out (light brown) and the rest stayed slightly moist (darker brown). My fault, should have baked it in smaller batches to fully dry it right out, but I also figured you'd be able to keep ecoearth at a variety of moisture levels without it developing mould. Not impressed with it to be honest. *Think I'll stick to what I know*.
> 
> As for ventilation, well, I thought I had ample. I mean, it's a glass tank, so I'm a little restricted in adding through/cross ventilation, but the lid has a large circular vent in one corner (directly above the water bowl) and I added (drilled) lots of holes to the opposite side, taking up about a third of the lid space. More required, clearly.
> 
> Job for tomorrow - figure out how to move a skittish lightening fast T into a tub without it jumping on my face.


You'd be surprised! 

Sometimes the best way! Especially with something completely new to you. (the spider and eco earth in this case).

Can you get a pic up of it at all? Maybe use that nice new camera :mf_dribble: :lol2:

If you do decide to strip it and opt for a change of substrate your best bet for figuring out how to move her is probably watch a few rehousing vids or something on Youtube, you'll get more from watching it happen as opposed to being told in writing


----------



## AilsaM (May 18, 2011)

Mrchancellor87 said:


> Am I the only one who just adds bog standard cold water to eco earth then chuck it in the tanks?


I much prefer boiling water as it is much quicker in drying it out instead of cold water, I've better things to do instead of drying out a load of eco earth lol


----------



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

Mrchancellor87 said:


> Am I the only one who just adds bog standard cold water to eco earth then chuck it in the tanks?
> 
> You dont need to use boiling water nor cook it in the oven a couple of times. These tarantulas do live outside in the real world, which im sure contains mold and other bits.
> 
> ...


Couple of things that were repeated over and over when I was reading up on how to keep a GBB alive for more than a week, was that they like it dry, and mould can be fatal, which is why I dried the substrate out as much as I could, and hence my concern / frustration at seeing a light covering of mould on the floor. I havent actually seen him down on the floor at all since being put in the tank - he's been busy constructing webs up on top of some branches (well, well seasoned, not fresh) this week.

I fed him for the first time tonight (speaking of - how hard is it catching cricket with tongs!?). He's eaten one, the other made a dash for it somewhere - will retrieve it tomorrow when I tip the tank into the bin.

Will drill a shedload more holes in the lid I think, clearly ventilation is the issue here, I think.


----------



## PeterUK (Jun 21, 2008)

Use top soil or peat compost or a mix of the two. Neither produce mould.


----------



## Veyron (Mar 29, 2011)

Mrchancellor87 said:


> Am I the only one who just adds bog standard cold water to eco earth then chuck it in the tanks?
> 
> You dont need to use boiling water.


The reason I do it, is because cold water takes hours to expand it....but boiling water does it in seconds : victory:



Eco earth wont produce mould by itself, so something else organic is present.


----------



## AilsaM (May 18, 2011)

Veyron said:


> The reason I do it, is because cold water takes hours to expand it....but boiling water does it in seconds : victory:


Really does just take seconds, much quicker than cold water.


----------



## PeterUK (Jun 21, 2008)

Veyron said:


> The reason I do it, is* because cold water takes hours to expand it.*...but boiling water does it in seconds : victory:


Using cold water from the tap, the coir brick will expand in about 10 minutes


----------



## Mrchancellor87 (Jan 10, 2012)

Ahh my point was just that its safe for use out of the packet kinda thing and it doesnt need baking or sterilising! (which I thought that hot water was for) 

Cool to know hot water does it quicker but my kettle would probably fill it with limescale haha.


----------



## rikki446 (Nov 24, 2011)

The mold will die off when your gbb enclosure drys out just make sure it's well ventilated I have had mold with eco earth but only in my more humid enclosures but I just increased ventilation and mist more often but gbb like it bone dry so once the substrate has dried you should never have any mold problems


----------



## dragon's den (Oct 6, 2010)

It looks unsightly, I used to change the substrate whenever I saw it appearing but I don't anymore, you will find that even in damp enclosures it will slowly disappear over time, and I've never had any displaying any type of illness in conjunction with it. 
The only thing I do remove is the mushrooms which seem to go hand in hand with it, one grew literally overnight last week and as it died it landed in the water dish and wasn't all that great in all.


----------



## MrFerretman6 (Sep 1, 2011)

Spiders silk is also anti-fungal and anti-microbial to some extent. Your spider will be fine. Chances are it is salts or minerals from the water leaching out of the soil but if it is mould it is not that big of a problem. As GBBs require little to no water, it will soon disappear or the spid will web the hell out of everything


----------



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

Well, Berks tank, as it was, has been stripped. On lifting the large flat piece of bark that was in there, the ecoearth was pretty damp - seems I didn't oven dry it as such, and just steamed it. Fluffy mould had spread everywhere by today, so I carefully moved Berk into a tub (crapping my pants in the process) and threw the whole lot in the bin. All decor was scrubbed in the bath and dried in the over, and I've used fine-grain vermiculite as substrate. Since GBBs are apparently arid-loving, I figured this would do the trick just fine. I've used vermiculite for incubating snake eggs without an issue - this is in high humidity/low ventilation environments, so I'm pretty confident my mould issues will not be making a comeback any time soon.

So here's his new viv (excuse the crappy photos):

Without lid









With lid









Hopefully this will keep him happy


----------



## PeterUK (Jun 21, 2008)

Se7enS1ns said:


> Hopefully this will keep him happy


Almost certainly it wont.

Vermiculite is very unstable underfoot and tarantula HATE that. It also looks crap and unnatural. 

Wet up some more coir. (3L of water per brick) 
Squeeze out as much water as possible. 
Spread the amount that you need to use thinly on some newspaper but no deeper than 1 inch (thinner is better) and place on top of a heatmat. 
After 12-24 hours depending on how moist it was originally, it will be almost or totally dry and ready for use.


----------



## Veyron (Mar 29, 2011)

PeterUK said:


> Vermiculite is very unstable underfoot and tarantula HATE that. It also looks crap and unnatural.


This looks like one of my setups from the late 90's haha, vermiculite was a must have :no1:


----------



## NikDan (Aug 31, 2013)

Just use HabiStat Spider Substrate all my T's are on it and if they burrow give them a few bits of bark and mix in about 25% eco earth.


----------



## KathyM (Jan 17, 2009)

I bloody hate coir bricks. You can buy loose coir online from the same places that do the bulk orders for bricks. That's what I'll be getting when my current stash of bricks dry out. xx


----------



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

PeterUK said:


> Almost certainly it wont.
> 
> Vermiculite is very unstable underfoot and tarantula HATE that. *It also looks crap and unnatural.*


In the words of The Dude, "well, that's just like, your opinion, or whatever, man"  I'm not sure the T give's a monkeys what it looks like, and there is nothing natural looking about a glass tank (or sweetie jar / acrylic cube / faunarium, et al). So long as the functionality is appropariate for providing the suitable environmental requirements plus the ability to display natural behaviors, I'm happy with how it looks.

I won't be going back to ecoearth - I'm sure the majority of people have used it without issue, and obviously the mould issue was my fault for not drying it out thoroughly enough and/or not providing enough ventilation, but I'll stick to stuff Ive used in various humidity/ventilation environments and not had mould issues with.


----------



## AilsaM (May 18, 2011)

Se7enS1ns said:


> In the words of The Dude, "well, that's just like, your opinion, or whatever, man"  I'm not sure the T give's a monkeys what it looks like, and there is nothing natural looking about a glass tank (or sweetie jar / acrylic cube / faunarium, et al). So long as the functionality is appropariate for providing the suitable environmental requirements plus the ability to display natural behaviors, I'm happy with how it looks.
> 
> I won't be going back to ecoearth - I'm sure the majority of people have used it without issue, and obviously the mould issue was my fault for not drying it out thoroughly enough and/or not providing enough ventilation, but I'll stick to stuff Ive used in various humidity/ventilation environments and not had mould issues with.


Dan did you just use cold water when making up the eco earth? If you use boiled water straight from the kettle it is much quicker drying out, I make up 2 bricks at a time with boiled water straight from kettle and once it's all expanded I just stick it in a big rub until needed, never once had a problem and never used cold water to make it up & also mixing in some of the vermiculite stuff with the eco earth is something a lot of people do.


----------



## Veyron (Mar 29, 2011)

Se7enS1ns said:


> In the words of The Dude, "well, that's just like, your opinion, or whatever, man"  I'm not sure the T give's a monkeys what it looks like, and there is nothing natural looking about a glass tank (or sweetie jar / acrylic cube / faunarium, et al). So long as the functionality is appropariate for providing the suitable environmental requirements plus the ability to display natural behaviors, I'm happy with how it looks..


You're correct about the T's not caring about what it looks like, but the point Peter was making is that vermiculite is the equivalent of us living in and trying to walk in a ball-pit. Eco earth will compact and becomes a solid, stable base for them to walk on, but vermiculite never does.

There's a reason this was used in the past and has since been disregarded by keepers now our knowledge has improved and specialist spider substrate is on the market.


----------



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

Veyron said:


> You're correct about the T's not caring about what it looks like, but the point Peter was making is that vermiculite is the equivalent of us living in and trying to walk in a ball-pit. Eco earth will compact and becomes a solid, stable base for them to walk on, but vermiculite never does.
> 
> There's a reason this was used in the past and has since been disregarded by keepers now our knowledge has improved and specialist spider substrate is on the market.


No I understand that, hence replying to the section in bold about looks. I may swap the vermiculite out - but if I do it wont be to ecoearth, and it wont have anything to do with how unnatural it looks.


----------



## mrkeda (Nov 6, 2012)

Se7enS1ns said:


> *Alternatively, dry vermiculite*.
> 
> Does anyone use either of these for their T's?


Starting post


PeterUK said:


> Almost certainly it wont.
> 
> Vermiculite is very unstable underfoot and tarantula HATE that. It also looks crap and unnatural.





Veyron said:


> This looks like one of my setups from the late 90's haha, vermiculite was a must have :no1:





Veyron said:


> Peter was making is that vermiculite is the equivalent of us living in and trying to walk in a ball-pit. Eco earth will compact and becomes a solid, stable base for them to walk on, but vermiculite never does.
> 
> There's a reason this was used in the past and has since been disregarded by keepers now our knowledge has improved and specialist spider substrate is on the market.


I know! Let's wait till OP has changed the eco earth out for vermiculite to say anything!


----------



## Veyron (Mar 29, 2011)

mrkeda said:


> Starting post
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Including yourself !! He asked if anyone used it.....im not going to answer yes am I ??


----------



## mrkeda (Nov 6, 2012)

Veyron said:


> Including yourself !! He asked if anyone used it.....im not going to answer yes am I ??


I haven't used it :2thumb: You've said you have though


----------



## SnakeBreeder (Mar 11, 2007)

Eco-earth is perfectly fine as long as you rehydrate it fully.
Hot or cold water doesn’t really matter, I suppose it’s personal choice.
It works best as a bio-active substrate with some humidity still in it and the addition of springtails and woodlice, depending on the cage occupant.
If you do get any mould all you have to do is wet it ! Then the cleaning crew will come over and eat it. Springtails and woodlice will both eat moulds and fungus as long as the area is not too dry.
I have several glass lined vivariums all with bio-substrates based on eco-earth mixes with peat, dead wood, pearlite, vermiculite etc. 
With a little maintenance they are pretty much trouble free.


----------



## markaveli (Feb 19, 2011)

I bought an adult female gbb a few weeks ago. She's on bone dry eco earth with a small water dish. From what ive read and experienced they hate damp substrate and high humidity. I dried it out completely on top of my boa's viv before I set up her enclosure. She also has plenty of ventilation. She is eating well and doing fine.: victory:


----------



## SnakeBreeder (Mar 11, 2007)

Eco-earth based substrates can be dried out completely but if you want them to be bio-active, with or without a clean up crew, then it works best if not completely dried out.
Some reptiles / inverts require dry substrate and that should be provided for them to meet their needs.


----------



## Se7enS1ns (Mar 11, 2012)

SnakeBreeder said:


> Eco-earth based substrates can be dried out completely but if you want them to be bio-active, with or without a clean up crew, then it works best if not completely dried out.
> Some reptiles / inverts require dry substrate and that should be provided for them to meet their needs.


My only concern with using bioactive would be the humidity - apparently GBB's are arid-loving, and the glass tank probably isnt suitable for ground level moisture due to poor cross ventilation. 
As it happens, bioactive substrate mixes are something I have planned for trialing with some of the snakes later in the year, so if I can get a stable batch going at low moisture levels I may try this with the T. For the minute though I'm keeping him on dry substrates. 

Looking at orchid bark next, oven dried. Orchid bark is something ive used pretty much exclusively for Royals for quite some time now, and have not had any issues with. Means moving Berk again though, and I do not like that... :blush:


----------

