Tiles. Tiles? Tiles!

[MamaTater]

I got a bunch of tiles for the three enclosures. Sand was nice, natural and all but horrible to keep clean. The newspapers were better but take a lot of replacing. I've been looking at tiles for a while now and just came upon a boatload for just the right price. (FREE!)
So what I'm wondering is this. What have been other's experiences with tiles?
Pros? Cons?
And I'm thinking about using duct tape to seal the cracks even tho they are slight. It would be relatively easy to replace as needed. Has anybody tried this?

What say you?! Be detailed, please and Thank You

 

[Sauzo]

I use natural slate tiles on Harleys cage. My advice is not to slate the whole cage. I did that and being that Harley loved to run all the time, it wore her toenails down to stubs so she had a hard time climbing stuff. I now only tile half the cage( the basking side) as the tiles hold heat well and the other side I just use paper towels as its easy to clean and change.

I don't seal the cracks in the tiles as it would make it a pain to take them out and clean them. Harley doesn't poop in her cage though. She paces the front of the cage when she sees me in the morning when she has to poop. I call it the "poop dance". I take her out and put her down and fold up 2 paper towels into a big square and she poops on that ad I toss it out. Then shes good to go for a couple days. So I really only need to chlorhexadine the tiles once a month but personally I still wouldn't tape or grout the tiles all together.

If you are bent on it though, a good idea I read somewhere is cut a sheet of plywood slightly smaller than the cage and then lay a piece of string on the bottom of the cage longer than the cage. Then glue the tiles down to the plywood and grout the tiles. Then after its all dried and set, you put the string down then put the plywood/tile floor down and youre good to go. Then when you need to remove it, you lift up the 2 ends of the string until you can get a finger under the plywood and lift it out.

Just make sure the tiles have some texture on them so the dragon can get grip. Don't use something like a smooth porcelain tile.

 

[CooperDragon]

I have tiles that were cut to the size of the tank (2 tiles take up the bottom of the tank). There is a small crack but it doesn't cause an issue and I don't worry about it. I have 3 sets so I can change them out to clean them. Tiles look nice, are easy to clean, keep the dragon's nails filed a bit, and hold a bit of heat.