Substrate

what should i use as substrate? i want to look as natural as possible.

I'd use sifted playground sand. 50lb bags are $2-3 at Home Depot. Sometimes you can find "premium" playground sand that doesn't have any pea gravel in it, but you'd want to sift it through a window screen to remove any of the larger particles.
Hope that helps.

they won't ingest it?

they won't get impacted is what i meant. i don't want to have to bring them to the vet. do you use it with out any problems?

For this I feed my bearded outside his cage in a tub without any substrate, this way he does not eat in his cage and I have to worry about any substrate being ingested.

Originally Posted by Beardie_Guy

they won't get impacted is what i meant. i don't want to have to bring them to the vet. do you use it with out any problems?

Nope, no problems. Dragons can pass small grains of sand if they inadvertently ingest it. That's why it should be sifted to remove any larger grains, pebbles, etc. My dragons are all fed inside their cages, but I put the mealworms and veggies in a food dish so that sand doesn't get stuck to them. There is a wide variety of sand-substrates available commercially for reptiles. Unfortunately, many of them are made mostly from calcium-carbonate which is *claimed* to be digestible. Studies have shown otherwise. The calcium sands can wreak havoc with the pH in an animal's digestive tract, and I personally wouldn't recommed it.

If you're still concerned about impaction, you can do what Michael mentioned about feeding them outside of their cages. Like I said, I've never had impaction problems from using sifted playground sand, but my brother did lose his uromastyx a few years ago due to an impaction of calci-sand. --That was before I knew how "un-safe" the stuff really is.

ok. i just wanted it to look like the outback of australia.

Originally Posted by Beardie_Guy

ok. i just wanted it to look like the outback of australia.

In that case, you might want to look for a pre-packaged reptile sand made by Zoo-Med called Repti-Sand that comes in a reddish color very similar to the clay color of the outback. That's the closest thing I can think of that I would still consider "safe".

yeah that stuff doesn't seem to be calci-sand. they make something else for that. it is also extremely fine quartz. oh, what temperature should be maintained at night and by what means should i do it?

Don't worry about heating them at night unless the room temp drops below 65. I would suggest not feeding them for an hour and a half before the daytime heat light is turned off, that way they can get a good start on digestion before the heat is gone. Mine just sit at room temp (70-75) overnight.