desertarium

[Royal-City-Reptiles]

I am getting a group of Xenagama taylori (sheild tailed agama) in the near future and was wanting to set them up in a viv. I am looking for some input on this, and every little bit will help.
Here is some info on them;

-originates from arid regions of Northern Africa and Somalia
-burrowers
-grow to an adult size of 3" to 3 1/2" in length and weigh up to 20 grams
-Very similar to the uromastyx sp. in regards to their husbandry requirements


Now, I want a substrate that they can actually create good, solid, fairly permanent burrows in. I have thought about soil..Too unnatural and unsightly. Sand, I don't know how solid of a burrow that would be. I am leaning towards a mix of sand, soil and coco fibre, has anyone had any success with this? What were/are your ratios?

What succulents could I use? I want this to be as 'naturalistic' as possible, so they would have to be arid plants from North or South Africa.
I was thinking a jade plant or 2, But what else?? As far as I know, jade is non toxic...

Has anyone used GS in a high heat(up to 120 degrees) viv? Outcome?

I thank everyone in advance!!

-Nate

[acpart]

I am not in exactly the same position with reptile needs, but I did some research recently to make a vivarium for african fat tail geckos which originate in west Africa. I was looking for a savannah type environment with plants where digging is possible but burrowing usually doesn't happen. Humidity in this case is moderate. I went for eco earth, which might be good for burrowing if kept moist, unless you need low humidity. For plants I have haworthia, jade, dracaena and an african violet. It's too soon to know how the plants will do in the long run but so far (2 weeks) they are responding well.
Aliza

[Waterkeeper]

the red can of great stuff reads "Cured foam is combustible and may present a fire hazard if exposed to flame or temperatures above 240 degF or 116degC"
I don't think 120 would be dangerous.
I would cook a cured piece in the oven at 140 and see if the elasticity of the foam changes much.
this should be a cool project, I don't see enough nice desert setups.

[Green Ghost]

I've never tried it myself but it seems like natural clay mixed with sand would do the trick. Natural clay is grey or reddish. You'd have to experiment with the ratios of each but I'm sure you could get to have something that would look like sand but hold together like clay. Clay dries out so you wouldn't have to keep it moist.

The idea that I had was that if you see that your reptiles are digging you could moisten (by misting) the sand/clay mixture to allow them to dig thier tunnels/burrows. I'm guessing it would dry quickly in an hour or so as they finished burrowing and hold it's shape. I'm thinking it would keep it's shape more or less until the next time you missted the mixture and allowed them to build more tunnels and burrows. It may even be possible that that mixture would hold up without any moisture added to it? Like I said it might be worth experimenting with.

[zaroba]

what if you just went with artificial borrows? would they use them?
just get a few small pieces of 1.5" or 2" pvc pipe and bury it with 45 degree bend pieces pointing up as the opening. don't know how big the tank is or how big there borrows usually are, so the length is up in the air. would need 2-3" of substrate to hide it though, but if the lizards will be digging anyway i assume you'd already have that much. if they use them, then you wouldn't have to worry about keeping the substrate good enough for them to dig in and not worry about it possibly collapsing on them. plus they wouldn't uproot any plants in the ground from digging if they use the pipes.

would just need to do something about the insides of the pipes to make them seem like real borrows.
like coating them in silicon and then putting sand on them.