Ok, I'm in the planning stage for my next set-up, and I debating the virtues of the various types of substrate.

Normally ( it's been a few years ) I just blend a mix of coir and/or sphagnum, sand, and aspen wood chips, until I have something that drains, yet holds moisture reasonably well, and it's worked ok, but now I think it's time to move on to something a little less generic.


One of the things I would like to do this time is to serve as a better host for spring-tails and the like, but do so with an eye for being compatible with an Appalachian and/or Willamette Valley ecology and one thing I keep hearing about on a number of forums is the use of leaves, yet in my searching I have yet to find any hard core information about actually using leaves in a Viv.

So what is the truth about using them?
Why would I want them and why would I want to avoid them?

I'm just trying to keep from being to ignorant, as to my substrate options.