We have used combo setups for 2 years now and it works well for us, easy to clean and the dragon seem to like it. We also changed over to this hoping to avoid coccidia problems and we have not had any since, the babies are on carpet/paper towel combo's and they get a sandbox at 9 months.
Sandy's tank. The wooden box on the left below the light is her sand pit, with a hammock by christyj suspended over half of it. This allows her some basking room, as well as somewhere to dig, and sleep under at night. Her tank's substrate is a reptile carpet that can be just thrown in the washing machine to be cleaned. Her veggie & water bowls are at the other end of the carpet. This is for two reasons.The veggies don't dry out under the heat of the basking lights (ZooMed Powersun 160Watt Flood, & 60Watt Philips Director bulb). When she gets hungry, any sand that has been picked up by her legs & feet is shaken off by the time she gets over to the food bowl, lessening the risk of ingesting it.
This is the girls' tank. Living in here is Lulu, Sherbert & Myst. They also have a hammock under their basking light. They now have their new sandbox, and seem to be pretty impressed with it. Their tank is the same size as Sandy's, with three of them in there, and it easily gives them all enough room to run around. Their main light in the 8.5" dome is another 160Watt flood ZooMed powersun. The 5.5" dome houses a 75Watt Philips Director bulb that we bought from the local grocery store. We give them this extra basking spot so they're not all clambering over each other to get warm. They're temporarily housed here on paper towels while their carpet is in the washing machine (these three girls can be pretty messy, lol).
Here you can see how the lights are suspended over the tanks. We keep the warm ends next to each other as it can be difficult to put cool & warm ends of tanks next to each other in this layout. So, it's easier to have the warm ends in the same area where the tanks connect, and the cooler ends on the outsides.
Arnie's enclosure and how to divide a enclosure for 1/2 sand 1/2 carpet. His enclosure is much taller than that of either of the girls tanks, so we suspend his light inside the enclosure to make up for this. As you can see, even with a wooden base enclosure (with glass front & mesh top), we have again split the tank so that his sandpit & feeding areas are separate. This is to lessen the risk of impaction. The purple cave there is directly under the light, and the other cave (extending over the barrier between the carpet & sandpit) doesn't get quite so warm as the purple one. Again, he can dig, or bask, or go off to the carpeted area to feed. By the time he clambers over to his veggies bowl, he's shaken off any sand that may have collected on his body.
And finally, here's Katie. This is our newest addition, and she's currently under quarantine, so her tank is very bare. All our dragons go into quaratine when they arrive for 90 days unless they were with others we got at the same time. Katie's kind of dark at the moment due to the fact that she's shedding, so she's not too happy. She is normally a white dragon. Once she's been in there for around 90 days, and gotten a clean bill of health from the vet, and clean fecals, she will be moved in with Myst, Lulu & Sherbert; Probably a new larger enclosure will be in order at that time or Sherbert may change in with Sandy as we are testing that when they are in the pool or out playing.
-Lauren 