Feuersalamander Infoboard

Hi there,

I'm Steven, Belgian and I'm new on this forum. I'm in caudata for many years, especially in newts. Sinds a couple of months I keep Salamandra species and these are pretty new for me so I'm still learning. Never ever kept full terrestrial species before. Plans are to specialise in salamandra and eventually let the newts go... I've been searching the forum to find the best solution and experiences with differend kinds of soils but as my german is not that good, the translator lets me down in many words and the many experiences are wide spread over many topics, it's hard to find the best solution.

I've tried woodlitter (ground of the woods). Good about it is that critters like earthworms, slugs etc.. keep living and provide a continue food for the salamandra. Bad about it is that I have no good control if the bottom is clean enough. Moisting to much makes the ground muddy... Getting ground from the woods is pretty difficult because every wood in my surrounding is protected by law. I must act like a thief to get some good woodground
Now I use reptibark but I'm not happy with that at all. It's expensive, and still no control about the wellness of the bottom. I'm pretty sure problems will turn up very soon...

I read about clay and about foam.
As I understand in other topics, the foam is good for younsters but not for adults. Adults have sheddingproblems with foam or did I misunderstand it?
Clay seems to be a good thing too, but not the clay that you can buy in the store? Clay is good for adults too??

I'm searching for a bottom that is good for the salamandra wellness, easy to clean and easy to get.

Can someone give me a good explanation about the pro's and contra's for those differend bottoms please?

Cheers,

Steven