Question: Is this bad?

[Dreamtheory]

If you saw my other topic i had started last night, about my salamanders living space being too wet. If it bad if the kind of smells? I think its a mixtures of the moss and eco earth being so wet, but is it bad if it smells?

Or is that normal?

I'm currently working on drying out the Eco Earth by using paper towels, I'm compressing them against the Eco Earth to suck the water out...

Any comments or concerns?

All help is very much appreciated

 

[shmifty5]

It depends on what smell it is, if it smells rancid or disgusting then it's definately bad, if it smells like damp earth or that weird smell after it rains then I wouldn't worry about it, nasty smells smell nasty for a reason (whether it be mold spores or just decomposition in general).

My tank usually has a very 'damp' smell to it, not a boggy smell but a smell of fresh earth or 'fresh rain' smell.

I usually use 2 things to dry out any soaking substrate, one is a towel and the other is a hair-dryer, the towel sucks up all of the excess water and the hair dryer drys it further (obviously...).

 

[Dreamtheory]

It depends on what smell it is, if it smells rancid or disgusting then it's definately bad, if it smells like damp earth or that weird smell after it rains then I wouldn't worry about it, nasty smells smell nasty for a reason (whether it be mold spores or just decomposition in general).

My tank usually has a very 'damp' smell to it, not a boggy smell but a smell of fresh earth or 'fresh rain' smell.

I usually use 2 things to dry out any soaking substrate, one is a towel and the other is a hair-dryer, the towel sucks up all of the excess water and the hair dryer drys it further (obviously...).

hmm well sounds from what your saying that i might need to change the eco earth in his aquarium again. Because it doesn't smell good, or at least last night it didn't smell good.

But i dried it out some last night, i took a lot of paper towels to soak up a lot of the water in the eco earth. And i threw away the moss i had in there, and put some new moss in. I want to see if it was the moss causing the smell or not. I think it was though.

So today when i get home i'll check. Are there any signs of bad soil/earth or signs of unhealthy conditions with moss ?

 

[shmifty5]

If you notice your sal trying to escape the soil (ie either in his water dish or on rocks or just in general avoiding contact with the soil) then there is a good chance your soil has some serious issues, if the soil smells or looks funyy then it might be best to not use it, as for the moss it really depends on what species of moss it is, I have some watered down sphagnum (???) in my tank and it really does fight off mold/decay and my tiger loves to burrow under the stuff, the only ever time I've had issues with my moss was when I once left a piece in the soaking bucket for 2 months and then it was only because the water smelled off (the moss was fine).

 

[merk199]

I try to completely change my substrate as soon as it becomes marshy. Ususally every 6-12 months. The only tanks I don't change the substrate in is ones I have false bottoms in.

 

[Dreamtheory]

I try to completely change my substrate as soon as it becomes marshy. Ususally every 6-12 months. The only tanks I don't change the substrate in is ones I have false bottoms in.

I end up changing Wall-E's substrate about every 3 months. Because it starts to smell kind of strong so I decide its probably bad to keep him in it.

But I guess if I don't keep the substrate so wet like I have been then I wont need to change it so often...