Thoughts on excavator clay?

Cookie is currently on reptile carpet. It’s been fine so far, except that it begins to smell after about a day or two (I switch it out with a clean one every week), and also her nails are incredibly sharp right now. I had hoped to get tile for her enclosure, but my local Home Depot won’t cut tiles.

I could make the trek to Lowe’s, but there’s another issue I’m having: she likes to dig at night! As soon as her tank lights go out, she starts trying to dig. Sometimes she’ll find her way under her carpet but if not, I just cover her with a blanket which usually calms her right away and then she’s able to fall asleep. But I don’t like denying her of her natural instinct to dig.

I tried placing a dig box in her tank for awhile but she didn’t pay any mind to it so it was just taking up unnecessary space.

So now my thought is this: I could divide her tank down the middle with a slab of wood, and fill the one half of the floor with a layer of hardened excavator clay. I NEVER put live food in her tank - she’s fed in a separate bin - so I don’t have any worries of her swallowing it while feeding. I would keep her veggie bowl on the side without the clay.

Any thoughts on this? Could this still pose a potential threat to her health?

You can put rocks in their enclosure it helps keep nails trimmed and if you your looking for a natural setup to allow digging and other natural behaviors like hunting look into a bioactive set up. Excavator clay will harden and become like a rock and wont be able to be removed from the tank and is used to make permanent burrows/tunnels and can solidify even if not made a burrow in it . In a bioactive substrate you dont have to clean it as much spot clean and your dragon can make burrows , dig, hunt and you can offer live plants