malystrx's new substrate

[Karagenknight]

Hi guys I was wondering if i could get some oppinions on the new substrate i want to put in my dragons tank. Malice is still little more than a baby no longer then 9in however my little on has been bedding down on some indoor/outdoor carpet and I am hoping to upgrade that with a new tank. I'm totally new to the beardie world and I need some help figuring out a solution to the problem i am having with crickets getting under the carpet. I am planning to line the new tank with 6"x6" tiles and i dont want the crickets falling into the cracks.
The idea i had to solve this issue is to lay all my slate tiles then fill in the gaps with sand instead of something like grout. My boyfriend and i are concerned however because we keep finding mixed opinions of whether or not to put sand in the tank because of compaction concerns. If anyone can offer any opinions to this please help. I would really like to use sand in the tank even if i have to wait for my beardie to get a little bigger. Sand sugesstions would be very welcome too

 

[RolandKyramere]

I kept my adult on sand most of this summer, and used sand when I originally adopted Equinox. I switched over to tile because of all the compaction issues I've heard about. If you do use sand, use either sifted play sand or I've heard Repti Sand is also alright, as it doesn't clump. The ones to avoid are the "digestable" sands, as they are made so that the essentially turn into cement in your beardie's tummy.
That's my two cents, I do use a bit of sand to fill in the area around Noxy's tiles, he likes to burrow still.
Awesome name for your beardie, by the way!

 

[Karagenknight]

See what I am looking to do is only use just enought sand to partialy fill in the tile gaps so that it wont flow over onto the tiles in the hopes that this would be less risk for ingestion. the tile gaps are very narrow and i shouldnt need to used very much sand.