Sand: Is it a safe substrate?

[Poly]

Recently, it was brought to my attention that sand may not be a good substrate to use(I currently use it in my toad vivarium, as both my toads came from an extremely sandy enviroment, I figured it wouldn't be a problem.), as the grains of it may stick to my toads eyes, and since they use their eyes to swallow it may grind away at their eyes when they do so!?

Is this true?

I know sand isn't a good substrate for most amphibians, but toads are unique in the fact that substrate dosen't stick to them that easily.

Thanks,

~Royce

[DonLisk]

I think more info you see on sand is going to be about how it would impact a frog and its ill effect during digestion. It should be no issue as to skin or external health concerns.

I may be wrong here but that is my thoughts.

[Poly]

What would you do in my situation?

[DonLisk]

If it is not where he/she is eating then I would let it go until you do a substrate clean or change. If it is part of a water feature then I wouldn't be too concerned since they don't usually eat in the water.

[Poly]

Well, it's all sand, and yes, they do eat in their Viv all the time! Should I change it out for soil? Or just take them out to feed? I like dropping 10-15 crickets in at night, because usually by morning they are all gone.

[IrishRonin]

Well like you said they came from a sandy area so thats what they know and are used to. What kind of sand are you using? Take into consideration that they probubly have eatin sand before you caught them and they probubly have had sand stuck to there eyes before as well but when I observe my toads if anything is stuck to they're eyes they they promptly remove it before doing anything else including eating, and it doesn't happen often.

[Poly]

Yes exactly! I figured because they come for a sandy area, it wouldn't be a problem. When I used soil for substrate, they didn't seem very happy, so I added a small sandy patch, then they would burry themselves in that patch, and pretty much ignore the rest of the tank, so when I changed the substrate to all sand they seemed MUCH happier, and moved around much more! To be honest, as for the "sand sticking to their eyes" concern, I had never seen this before, but I just wanted to clarify whether it may or may not be something I need to change.

Oh, and it is jusr regular brown sand, much like beach sand.

[IrishRonin]

I think there fine. When you do a substrate change maybe go to play sand (100% silica sand) from any hardwear store. Its like $5-10 for 50lbs and its clean of any foreign material, just give it a good rinse to get rid of any dust. To me your just mimicing there natural habitat which is what keeping frogs/toads- any animal is all about.