Cage Flooring

Hi everyone, I'm Sam and just joined this site. New bearded owner with lots of questions. Iggy, that's my bearded is growing like a weed, has a wonderful appetite (he gets silkworms, hornworms, black fly worms, crickets and salad which of course he wont eat. BTW, the person who posted about the stinky poop, I found the answer. At first Iggy was getting crickets and his poop would knock you over. But what I noticed, once his diet was switched to silkworms, hornworms, and black fly worms, no more stinky poop. The worms are expensive, so I researched and now growing my own.

I have done my homework, read just about every web-site on the internet (a lot of information, not all accurate), but there is one thing I'm having trouble figuring out. Right now Iggy's flooring is the artificial fabric flooring. I have read horror stories about the sand, so don't want to go there, but was wondering if anyone has used the substrate offered by the Bio-Dude? His video on the web-site showed a setup for a bearded. My question "is it safe for a young dragon"? Iggy is about 2 months old and I sure don't want to do anything to harm him. With this substrate, you can place plants directly in the soil and add natural and living things to the viv. (not that Iggy stays in it very much). I live in SW Florida and Iggy gives attitude if he isn't able to run the screened lani. His fav thing to do is lying around in the sun, then intimidate the geckos. Rambled on enough for this post, so I'm going to close. If anyone has information about the Bio-Dude and his substrate, please let me know.

Is it safe for a bearded dragon at all? No, not really. I mean leopard geckos sure, they do great in them if done correctly since they aren't so genetically weak and are also built different compared to a bearded dragon. However because beardies are pretty weak in captivity, especially in the US and if your dragon is any type of morph they most likely aren't going to be able to entirely with stand a bioactive enclosure unless its done very correctly...
Personally for beardies I wouldn't risk it.



If you were to do a bioactive enclosure I'd say have AT LEAST a 4x2x4 enclosure, i'd preferably go for a 6x2x4 even. Just to provide enough room so that the beardie can choose to get off of the bacterial infested damp substrate. (The terra sahara substrate can actually be super damp if you have plants).
I'd also recommend waiting till the dragon is over two years of age.


Honestly take everything the bio-dude says very lightly.

I honestly don't like bioactive setups with desert-dwelling animals, as they can cause extremely high humidity - plus, you live in SW FL. Plus, you'd have to have a HUGE setup to have enough microfauna for them to be able to do your dirty work. Not only that, but it wouldn't be good for them to consumer the substrate, and at one point or another they probably will.

Just my 2¢, I would go for a non-particle substrate.

Thanks for all the advise. This site is very helpful!