I use peat in my land enclosure, and I cut it with crushed clay. The clay makes it a bit drier; I have to spray some water every now and then to keep it from getting too dry.

Shannon: I don't add chemicals to my snakes' water, and I don't currently use a filter on it, either. Had one, but it blew. If the snakes poop, I still had to clean the water, so I decided not to bother with it. I also don't use chemicals when I clean. I just scrub out the green slimy stuff and rinse. Also, the water in that enclosure isn't very deep. The way the pipe is positioned, I can only keep about two, at most three gallons in it at a time without making a huge mess; I could probably remove the rock from the center, but the snakes like to coil up on it. It's really just enough for the garters to bathe if they want. But I will take into consideration that I probably don't need to clean it as often.