Why do people use sand?

[Bahamut]

I can see why people use sand. It's been the norm for years, stores up sell it, it's a litter box you can just scoop waste out of, and for some reason everyone thinks desert=sand. Like canicke said, beardies are from Australia and while they can be seen on sand, they're largely found on compacted dirt and rocks. I live in arizona so I'm fairly familiar with high desert surroundings.
Beardies should also be able to pass the amount of sand they lick up when testing their surroundings if they're hydrated and healthy. Now, if they're swallowing sand, perhaps there's a deeper problem you might be looking at.

 

[diegothediggy]

Every substrate has its pros n cons it's down to the owner n sand is perfectly fine if ur beardie is well looked after. Impactation only occurs wen ur beardie does not have enough heat to digest. Or is not well looked after or in the rite environment. Each person has there own opinions as long as u research the substrate u use and make sure u meet all the rite conditions forbade best health of ur beardie. I started with sand. It annoyed me for a few reasons. It was hard to clean. U have to replace it every month at least. Food gets lost in it n the thing that annoyed me more than anything was the sand would go in the run of the glass doors and make an awful noise. So I got rid of most of it n replaced it with tile I just kept the 1/4 of the viv under the basking light sand with some stone in for them to basket on. I luv my boys viv so easy to clean keeps warm and looks good.

 

[stijngh]

Well I replaced my sand with carpet a few weeks ago and I'm thinking on switching back to sand... I'm just waiting for my beardie to get a little bigger (to be more safe for impactation).

The carpet I bought:

Why I prefer sand over carpet:

• easy to clean the poop (scoop the poop and sand area around it out) >< with carpet take the poop and throw it away and clean the spot again (dry and wet), this also leaves traces of paper (since the carpet is like sandpaper)
• looks way(!!!) more beautiful than carpet (my carpet is a few inches too small to cover up the whole tank) and multiple carpets next to/over each other are ugly
• (1/2) monthly tank cleanup is just as easy as with carpet: just scoop out the old sand and put new sand in >< since my carpet is like sandpaper it is pretty rough to clean

So... As soon as he get's bigger I'm gonna throw away the carpet. The ease of cleaning up daily poop is a really big +++.

Why I'm not trying tiles:

• cost
• still 40L of sand left
• tiles cool down fast and can get pretty cold

 

[Bahamut]

• cost
• still 40L of sand left
• tiles cool down fast and can get pretty cold

Tile is extremely cheap so don't let that deter you, you can get them for .69 cents-$3 per. Which, in comparison to sand is extremely cheap. Of course you can always do a mix of both

 

[stijngh]

Tile is extremely cheap so don't let that deter you, you can get them for .69 cents-$3 per. Which, in comparison to sand is extremely cheap. Of course you can always do a mix of both

Yup at first I mixed the sand with some tiles from outdoors. But it took me 3 times longer than sand to clean the poop. That's why I threw them out again.