# Walnut shells bad substrate for scorpions?



## Roblicious (Apr 6, 2011)

I have my AZ devil scorpion in a mixture of potting soil, coco fiber, and majority of walnut shells cause thats all I had around the house, I am hearing that its bad for them?

I also have my hissing cockroaches in walnut shell substrate, ive read several places that it doesnt matter the substrate, as long as its dry and wont mold up?

He has already dug a burrow/hole and it is holding right now, I do have some coco fiber leftover and it is drying right now, not sure if its enough to get it to the level I want it at though.

Is it bad because it just doesn't hold for a burrow or what? I am sure mine will hold cause its mixed with other substrate, I might just end up ditching it all together, I just want to know for future reference in case I am able to mix it with other substrate.
Here is a pic of him right as I intro-ed him into the container, he made a small hole besides the rocks the next morning






Thanks


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## Jorpion (Apr 6, 2011)

*Walnut shells - good in my opinion and experience*

Very cool little setup you have there! Walnut shells are perfectly fine in an arid setup such as yours. You already know about the importance of keeping walnut shells dry, so go for it. Even an occasional misting won't cause any mold issues. Some of my substrate concoctions have consisted of walnut shells, vermiculite, playsand, good ol SoCal dirt/sand from outside, coco fiber, coco shells, etc.

Great question 

Jeff


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## Roblicious (Apr 6, 2011)

Yeah, I heard that it can cause impaction cause it doesnt get digested, dont they use acid to liquidfy their food anyways so they can suck it down?

Well its more of a case with bearded dragons I gues they eat everything?

The top portion is mainly potting soil, vermiculite, coco fiber, and walnut shells, while the rest is straight walnut shells.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 6, 2011)

by look into it i meant google or search on here.   i even did the work and told you they are toxic to inverts.  that's how walnuts work. 

in fact, you can probably search my name and walnut and find all kinds of good info


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## Roblicious (Apr 6, 2011)

Well, when I googled walnut shells as substrate for scorpion or anything along those lines, I got stuff for bearded dragons as they end up eating it and die frm impaction. Mainly reptile things


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## cacoseraph (Apr 6, 2011)

walnut trees are pretty toxic.  some species are worse than others, but i'm not sure we know what species is made into substrate


impaction probably is a concern for herp ppl, but we are concerned with is the fact that walnut trees are permeated by natural insecticides.  it is likely that your scorpions won't immediately die, or even act funny.... but over time *something* can happen to them.   the problem is that if the scorpion doesn't go belly up in the first week some ppl think the substrate is totally fine... it's a poorly conceived metric.   toxic damage on small scale is basically unobservable.  you're scorpion might live 10% shorter, have trouble making the babies, have trouble catching food and you will never be able to tell why


considering there are many substrates on the market that carry effectively zero chance of being toxic, why go with one of the very few that does?


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## Roblicious (Apr 6, 2011)

Im drying out what remains of my coco fiber right now under a IR light, its been under there overnight should be good by the end of the day, once that dried out, I am switching it out and tossing that stuff out, dono why they even made taht substrate a option at the pet store.

I only bought that stuff cause all they had were calci sand and I didnt feel like buying a 50 lb bag of it at lowes lol.


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## John Bokma (Apr 6, 2011)

Most pet stores just sells what makes money.

Reactions: Like 1


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## cacoseraph (Apr 6, 2011)

walnut could potentially be a decent substrate for herps if you don't feed on it.  because it does have a bit of inherent insecticide in it it can probably help to keep cage mite populations down.  or at least make things a bit harder for them.  depending on what the specific toxins are and do it might not be that big of a deal to herps




in the usual case, petstores are not a good source of info.  sometimes they do have really cool, knowledgeable ppl, but generally it seems not so much.  aside from that, i try not to get my info from ppl who are selling anything. conflict of interest and such like


the way i figure it, we should all do our due diligence and look into things for our bugs as best we can


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## Roblicious (Apr 6, 2011)

I think the bag said something about it being english walnut shells, not sure if that is super toxic or not, but none the less in a few hours the lil guy will have new substrate and have to dig a new hole again lol

I am going to be using dried coco fiber, hopefully I can find a bag of loose coco fiber of some sort, I hate waiting on those bricks to dry up lol


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## cacoseraph (Apr 6, 2011)

english isn't as bad as black, iirc




also, on a related note, i have seen cedar substrate being sold in petstores.  idk how it works for herps, but it's not good for inverts. it is another case of natural toxins.  roughly, anything that has a distinct and/or pungent smell is probably not good for bugs


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## Roblicious (Apr 6, 2011)

I got him on coco fiber now, I bought a bag of loose coco fiber, though I did wet it slightly and packed it down cause this guy loves to burrow, didnt want that stuff caving in on him.

Slow eater though, hes been munching on a cricket half his size for over 4 hours now :/


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## Sir Aculeus (Apr 7, 2011)

Roblicious said:


> I got him on coco fiber now, I bought a bag of loose coco fiber, though I did wet it slightly and packed it down cause this guy loves to burrow, didnt want that stuff caving in on him.
> 
> Slow eater though, hes been munching on a cricket half his size for over 4 hours now :/


Took the words right out of my mouth. Was going to say coco fiber. Coco is awesome for scorps. They hold very well for burrowing. Holds moisture but at the same time coco fiber does not drench unless you sit there and missed the hell out of it. And if it does get soaked coco fiber dries faster than soil.


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## cacoseraph (Apr 7, 2011)

cocofiber is not actually that great for burrowing scorpions.   it works ok in the beginning but eventually will fail.   it doesn't have the right characteristics for holding a burrow long term


it's a bit better for tarantulas/spiders that web it up, but will still eventually fail if dug in too much.




there is a way to expand it, and then compress it into the shape that you want... but if the scorpion actually digs in it, it will fall down




typically for burrowers you need to mix in some sand or clay or fine particle soil to make the coconut keep its shape better.   i eventually gave up and looked to other subs for burrowing scorpions before i stopped keeping them


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## Sir Aculeus (Apr 7, 2011)

cacoseraph said:


> cocofiber is not actually that great for burrowing scorpions.   it works ok in the beginning but eventually will fail.   it doesn't have the right characteristics for holding a burrow long term
> 
> 
> it's a bit better for tarantulas/spiders that web it up, but will still eventually fail if dug in too much.
> ...


Your right. 

I forget I use coco for my rainforest scorpions and I keep things very moist so the coco fiber stays moist and holds better. If the coco dries up it doesnt hold as well.


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## Roblicious (Apr 7, 2011)

I plan on doing a very light mist once a week on the substrate to keep humidity where it is supposed to be 50-60 according to the care sheet.

I might plan on going to the river and getting some sand and mixing that in with it and repacking all of it down, will that do a better job holding then straight coco fiber?

75coco/25sand mix, ill wet it and pack it then wait a few days for it to dry a little bit before putting the scorpion back in?


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## cacoseraph (Apr 7, 2011)

Charlie Brown said:


> Your right.
> 
> I forget I use coco for my rainforest scorpions and I keep things very moist so the coco fiber stays moist and holds better. If the coco dries up it doesnt hold as well.


well, yes and no

if you do it right it holds its shape perfectly when it dries.   you know those bricks in the petstore?  you can almost turn expanded coco into that form by hand.   just watch out! i have cracked more than a few cages pushing hard


overall, it is just not a great substrate for burrowing scorpions


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## John Bokma (Apr 7, 2011)

My Diplocentrus melici begs to differ, it makes complete tunnels through the stuff. Mixed with sand it works very well with my emperors and a tarantula sp. I keep. Probably depends on the quality of the stuff?


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## cacoseraph (Apr 7, 2011)

it can be burrowed in for a while... but it fails after a time if the bug keeps digging.

tarantulas can make burrows that last for years in it, because they web it up and most eventually stop actively digging

but the scorpions don't web and tend to either keep actively digging or just bump into the unsecured walls.  eventually their tunnel systems will fail. usually with the scorps inside.  generally not a big deal, though it can be.  it can really really suck it if happens to a mom with babies on her back, though.


if you recage your bugs every 6-18months you might not see it, depending on how good your initial setup is.  but if you only recage when you have to, you will see just about every burrow made in coconut, no mattter how tricky you were, fail


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## John Bokma (Apr 7, 2011)

Have emperors in the same substrate for 3 years. Mixing it with sand most likely made a big difference. And, again, the quality of the stuff. If you have just big coco husk chips, I can imagine that it's not good. But a mix of very fine stuff, fibers, small pieces and a few bigger chips works perfectly IMO. So maybe I am tricky enough ;-).

Edit: the emp tank has also plenty of small pothos growing, the roots help to stabilize the substrate further.


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## Roblicious (Apr 7, 2011)

I have all my tropical enclosures in 100% coco fiber and 2/3 of them have huge tunnels going under them (My ASF is super lazy and hides under the log instead), but the substrate is always moist and the 2 scorpions havent done anymore digging that I have noticed. I think thats how mine have stayed intact, I was going to use the same logic for the little enclosure I have, just not as moist obviously, a weekly spray or 2 just to get the humidity to 50-60.

I am going to mix the coco fiber with some beach sand after I goto the river today anyways, once I mix it, wet it, and pack it in tightly, ill wait a few for it to dry then intro the scorpion again.

I have spare 7.5x4x4 containers so I can premake these homes 

Container store FTW.


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## John Bokma (Apr 7, 2011)

http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2008/03/20/pandinus-imperator-terrarium.html

is my set up. No problems for 3 years now. (Note that Jungle bed is, guess, like 80-90% coco). I did add several small pothos plants, and it looks very cool now.

For the tarantula set up I used much more sand / sand with clay, and a top layer of coco.


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## Roblicious (Apr 7, 2011)

I have seen your site in the past when I was researching care for my emperor its very nice


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## John Bokma (Apr 7, 2011)

Thanks! I want to update the article with the lid I am currently using (piece of glass with 3mm hole in the center).


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## cacoseraph (Apr 7, 2011)

yeah, roots are a pretty big game changer.  it's going to serve a rough equivalent of holding the dirt together like webbing.  except the webbing is a purely external support and the roots will be almost purely internal.  so well established roots are probably better than webbing and both would be ideal.


actually, ime having a more inconsistent chunk size was better. i could get subs to last a couple years with roughly 70% coco and 30% aspen strips




the basic problem has to do with angle of repose once all the tightly packed substrate is turned into loosely packed substrate.   this doesn't HAVE to happen, but with scorpions that constantly burrow it usually does.

you can get around it, sorta, by packing the substrate tightly enough that it kinda starts to turn back into it's brick form.  the bugs can dig under it and as long as it maintains enough structural integrity it won't collapse.  but... if they keep digging it is almost certainly going to one day.





i don't do planted tanks.  i don't really like taking care of plants that much and i am horrible at it.  after having to redo the third tank or so because its plants died and went yucky i went to purely dead/synthetic tanks


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## Roblicious (Apr 7, 2011)

Yeah I have a pothos plant in my emperor and red claw enclosure, they seem to be doing fine, little wilts here and there prolly because it used to be 1 plant then I split it in half.

In my ASF I have 2 plants not sure the name, if they do die I am going to replace with pothos plants.

They seem to be the easiest to take care of, they only need indirect light and can live in 100% water so potting soil is a plus. they can also handle the 80+ temps I have in my enclosures.

They also look the best


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## Scorpionluva (Oct 4, 2017)

Heres 1 of the threads i read involving crushed walnuts being bad for inverts


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