When starting off with juveniles up to 6 months old, I found that paper towels or turf(you can buy turf at most pet shops)works the best. Because when the Dragons are small the sand or small rock can be swollowed by the little ones. If they eat enough of that it makes for a very unhappy Dragon and you might be heading to the vet. As the Dragons grows older(6 months& up)thier eating skills seem to become a little better. What I mean by that is they dont miss as many crickets and dont eat as many pebbles. So now its time to switch the paper towels or turf over to sand. The type of sand I like to use is sold in most pet shops its called "Desert Sand". Its a fine sand about a #40 grade, but alot of Dragon keepers like to use playground sand, which you can buy at almost any hardware store. The whole idea behind using sand on the bottom of the tank is to give the dragons a more natural ground. One more good part of sand as a bottom, when the Dragon goes to the bathroom all you need is a kitty scooper, scoop it up and put it in a bag. (nice and easy)
Landscaping
All dragons like to climb. In the wild Beardies can be seen climbing on fence poles. So its very important to give them something to climb on. You can buy drift wood at most pet shops but its costly. If you go out and find wood you have to make sure its cleaned very well(bleach&water). Alot of the wood found outside are homes are infested with all types of bugs&even mites!!! Like I said make sure its bug-free before it goes in the tank. If you have two Dragons then two basking sites would work best. One more thing that Dragons love to lay on is the "Lizard hammock" made by Zoo Med(its also shown on my pic page). Shelters should be made available, place them away from the hot part of the tank. You can buy these in pet stores also or like me make your own using flat rocks to build a house like structure. Live plants can be used inside your tank. Even though I use sand as a base I still have live plants inside my tank. Recommended live plants are: Snake plants, small palms, jade, try to get plants that wont be eatin or ripped up very fast, they also have to survive the temps inside the tank. When buying live plants make sure that the soil doesn't have perlite(little white balls)in it, for some reason Dragons like to eat it and it will get them sick. Alot of Dragon keepers say "If you buy plastic plants you should of bought a plastic lizard". Yeah whatever buddy,my Dragons are happy with the live ones and the fake ones so do whats best for you and your pets.
