Bearded Dragon Habitat | A short How To Guide

One year later, see my update here:    • Bioactive Bearded Dragon Tank Update....  

After deciding on an appropriate school pet, the Bearded Dragon, I did tons of research on how to setup a habitat for him. This is what I came up with! I decided to create a Bioactive Enclosure or Bioactive Tank. This means that the habitat is not a sterile environment, but instead a mini ecosystem of plants and insects that work together to create a naturalistic habitat that is self-cleaning (or at least somewhat self-cleaning). Bearded Dragons are from the Outback of Australia which is a hot, dry, and difficult environment, but not exactly the sandy desert you might think of. In this video I show how I created my soil mix, selected and prepared the hardscape, picked out the plants, and added the supporting insects known as the Clean Up Crew. I hope you will enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed making it. Feel free to add your advice below or if you are a Lafayette student, stop by the office! I look forward to meeting you, and so does the dragon. A NAME REVEAL VIDEO will be coming soon!

I truly learned a lot from my research and this process. Learning new things is fun so never stop learning!

Here is the substrate recipe. Your mileage may vary! I tried several different formulations based on my research. I wanted something that I could buy locally, would hold moisture for the clean up crew, was safe for the beardie, would hold it's shape if he dug in it, and was good for the plants.
4 parts organic soil (no vermiculite or perlite).
2 parts play sand (or other clean sand that is low in dust)
2 parts Repti-bark or Orchid bark
2 parts Excavator clay
2 parts coconut coir
1 part peat moss
I would be sure to sterilize the soil by baking it in an oven at 300F or 150C for 30 minutes.