The cage will smell, regardless of what you do. Bioactive substrate is a great idea, I also keep some superworms and once they establish, the feces get eaten in less than an hour.
Still, the cage will smell like earth, wood, etc, which can be strong and can be unpleasant to some people. Especially if you keep the cage humid enough and warm enough.

As for your savannah monitor never burying in the cypress mulch, there is a clear reason. This substrate sucks for monitors and they cannot dig tunnels in it. Basically, your monitor never had the chance to dig.

The monitor never being hidden is probably a bad sign too. It's not natural for these animals.

Sorry for the bad comments.

These guys are a bit tricky to keep at first. The it gets easier if you read enough. Unfortunatelly, there are no complete caresheets around.

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