G.Rosea substrate?

[Mandy Clinch]

When i first got my rosea, she was an impulse buy and the guy gave me a bag of bark chips for her as substrate. She walked about fine and webbed loads.
I did some looking about and realised that chips were bad (they weren't fresh ones, but older looking ones, so no smell etc...) but i got some plain organic potting soil while i waited for some Eco Earth.
On both the soil, and now the eco earth, she doesn't seem to settle. She sits on a flat piece of cork bark in the corner. When she does walk around, she keeps as many legs as possible on the side, with only about 2 or 3 on the floor. She spends a lot of time in the corner, up with all bar her bottom 2 legs on the side. She occasionaly pops a tiny bit of web on her bark, but no where near as much when on the chips.

Can anyone suggest a better substrate she will be happier on? She used to be so sociable and wander around and now she just sits in one place. Shall i cave in and out her back on the chips? She seemed to like them......

Thanks in advance, and sorry for being a pain!

[Vicky Child]

They do tend to get a little unsettled when their enclosures are messed about with. Why not try adding a thin layer of the bark on top of the substrate you have replaced it with? See if she likes it better then.

[Colin D Wilson]

G rosea like (for the most part...there are exceptions ) dry deep natural substrate (compost, peat, topsoil, etc etc)

I find if you pack it down and dig a little "scrape" or burrow entrance under a piece of cork bark (or similar) then that starts them off digging.
Saying this a lot of the ones here are just in a tub with deepish dry substrate and tend to just move in from side to side during the night.

Whatever makes them happy

[De' Andrea Priddy]

I recently bought a female sub-adult G. rosea from a local petshop. At the petshop she was on the green reptile carpet & was in the corner with legs up like you describe. The petshops (2) near me didn't have books on Ts, but I have 19 snakes & 8 lizards so i have lots of reptile books. I had one that included some Ts & had a small amount of onfo' about G. roseas. It claimed they needed moist substrate. Thankfully I was smart enough to search the net for info' & came across a breeders' website that had care sheets. His site is how I found this forum. (I also bought 3 slings from him). I had her on orchid quality spagnum moss (not moist) to begin with. She seemed to like it. After a week I bought some soil & changed just the substrate, left all hides the same. Tessa was not happy one bit, so I gave into her & put dry spagnum moss back over the soil, she settled back to her sweet self. You will probably have to give into you rosea's preference also. I read where they are considered a "pet rock", I think the author hasn't met roseas like ours! Tessa lives in a 10 gal. aquarium & stays out in the open almost all the time.