grandcenobite
New Member
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So to start, I have a very curious and active, 3.5 year old Argentine black and white.
She never really seemed happy in her 6x4 I made for her (8 in deep substrate), always clawing and jumping at the sides, or at the sliding glass trying to get out, or just endlessly scratching at the bottom edges, just incredibly active. So, I decided to give her the extra room in my house, with nice heat retaining Spanish tiles, and she seems much happier with it, I have managed to get it to a good point temperature wise with a warmer and cooler side, nice basking spot, the room itself is about 10x10ish. Anyways, I'll finally get to the point.
I gave her a nice large, shallow rubbermaid bin full of dirt to dig in, giving her about a foot of digging depth total, however, when she does decide to dig, she is still just digging to one side and incessantly trying to dig deeper and deeper.
So I had a thought, of using this old, empty 60 gallon aquarium I've had laying around to make a dig box, with a nice shallow ramp for her to climb up and down, so this would give her about 2 feet of depth. Is this overboard? Can too much substrate hurt? I'd imagine they're able to dig pretty deep in the wild, but I'm sure millennia old dirt holds a tunnel better than our captive "new" dirt.
I've seen some say more is better, but I'm just wondering when "more" becomes "too much".
Sorry for the text wall, just wanted to assure everyone my husbandry is proper despite her not being in a sealed enclosure. I looked hard for a similar thread but couldn't quite find what I needed.
She never really seemed happy in her 6x4 I made for her (8 in deep substrate), always clawing and jumping at the sides, or at the sliding glass trying to get out, or just endlessly scratching at the bottom edges, just incredibly active. So, I decided to give her the extra room in my house, with nice heat retaining Spanish tiles, and she seems much happier with it, I have managed to get it to a good point temperature wise with a warmer and cooler side, nice basking spot, the room itself is about 10x10ish. Anyways, I'll finally get to the point.
I gave her a nice large, shallow rubbermaid bin full of dirt to dig in, giving her about a foot of digging depth total, however, when she does decide to dig, she is still just digging to one side and incessantly trying to dig deeper and deeper.
So I had a thought, of using this old, empty 60 gallon aquarium I've had laying around to make a dig box, with a nice shallow ramp for her to climb up and down, so this would give her about 2 feet of depth. Is this overboard? Can too much substrate hurt? I'd imagine they're able to dig pretty deep in the wild, but I'm sure millennia old dirt holds a tunnel better than our captive "new" dirt.
I've seen some say more is better, but I'm just wondering when "more" becomes "too much".
Sorry for the text wall, just wanted to assure everyone my husbandry is proper despite her not being in a sealed enclosure. I looked hard for a similar thread but couldn't quite find what I needed.
