It would be much easier to figure out what species you wanted to keep and then find out what substrate is best, we can list a bunch of good subsrates but some species do better on certain substrates.
tropical:
-Cypress Mulch
-good old newspaper/paper towels/graph paper(cheapest option)
-aspen chavings/chips
-coco husks(eco earth) too messy for me and gets dusty is not contantly kept moist.
-I would be waery of getting substrate from hardware stores, east coast stores seem to have more natural stuff, but most of the mulches contain a "forest blend" which is either ceder, redwood or some other toxic wood. soils have fertizers or some other kind of chemicals in them, even the "organic" ones.
-Pine, i have heard people doing this with no negative effects but the jury is still out on this one.
-sphagnum moss for some amphibians/ moist hides.
-tile
-don't like carpet or repti bark(too many mite cases/ personal experiance)
-i'm sure i'm missing some
Desert:
-Cilica free sand(kind of hard to find)
-Playsand if cleaned properly
-paper towels/newspaper(which i recomend for hatchlings-juvies under 8 months for any species)
-many of the ones listed above and even a combination of a couple i.e. sand and eco earth.
just what i would recommend and use for my herps.
