Choosing Vivarium Floor Materials

Cleanliness is an important part of keeping exotic pets but at the same time there’s an understandable desire to make their tanks as “natural looking” as possible; trying to achieve both can seem a bit of a challenge when it comes to choosing materials for the vivarium floor.

The ideal floor material is easy to clean, not harmful to the inhabitants of the vivarium, won’t harbour bacteria or pathogens too readily and looks aesthetically pleasing. It’s an easy enough tick-list to write, but in practical terms, what are the best sorts of material to use at the base of your tank?

Aquarium Floors

For aquatic pets, gravel is hard to beat and it’s readily available; most aquarium suppliers or pet shops have plenty of different sorts available. It’s generally a good idea to opt for natural types of gravels rather than the coloured kind which some fish-keepers seem to prefer, since some animals – particularly amphibians – can be sensitive to the chemicals used to make them.

It’s important to wash the gravel carefully before use, even if does say it’s pre-washed – it will almost always still hold enough soil and silt to make the water cloudy and it may also conceal potentially harmful microbes. Give it a thorough washing before adding it to the vivarium; some pet-keepers recommend letting newly bought gravel soak overnight in disinfectant solution and then washing it thoroughly again with clean water just to be sure.

Some aquatic invertebrates, such as the various species of Triops, will enjoy digging around in a sandy floor, but generally sand is best avoided in the vivarium. In aquatic set-ups, the slightest activity by your pets will make the water cloudy in no time and in the terrarium, sand often sticks to food and can sometimes cause problems as a result. If you do want to use sand in a Triops tank, go for coral sand which is available from good aquarist stores; it will let them dig, but it doesn’t cause the same cloudiness that normal sand does.

Terrarium Flooring

For the terrestrial vivarium, gravel can again often be a good choice – but a lot depends on the type of animal you are wanting to keep. For particularly messy beasts, such as tortoises and many of the snakes, it may be more sensible to opt for newspaper or kitchen towelling – or one of the proprietary brands of granulated paper. While admittedly it doesn’t look particularly natural or appealing, it certainly makes regular cleaning out a good deal easier.

For other kinds of vivarium dwellers, peat, bark, compost or sphagnum moss may be more appropriate. Sphagnum is ideal for many kinds of amphibians, for instance, because it helps maintain the levels of moisture needed – though compost can do this almost as well. However, since a humid vivarium is as good an environment for fungus as it is for frogs, it’s important to keep a careful watch on a compost or peat floor and replace it at the first sign of mildew or beginnings of a sour smell if you want your pets to stay healthy.

Shredded bark or bark chippings have become increasingly popular as a vivarium flooring material over recent years. Although bark products are available in bulk from many garden centres, principally intended for use as a mulch, it’s probably worth paying the extra to get the specialist material sold for exotic pets.

Choosing the right material for your tank’s floor needn’t be a difficult task; all you really need to do is ensure that whatever you pick meets the basic needs of the animal that’s going to be living in it, is relatively easy to clean and looks acceptable. Add some interesting decor, a little suitable wood or a few rocks and perhaps even some plants and your vivarium will be well on the way to providing an ideal home for your pet.