BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

We have a 10 month old Irian Jaya who is a gem - and is so active now. For the first ~6 months he hid so much, but now he's out exploring a lot and spends more time basking, which is nice. Sometimes I felt like we didn't have a skink in that tank! Hah.

Anyway a couple months ago we switched from aspen to cypress mulch to help with his shedding and he's doing much better with the slightly higher humidity than was in the tank before. I love the mulch except holy cow he makes a huge mess every day in his water dish. Sometimes it looks like more mulch than water! Do you guys have any hints on how to keep substrate out? I don't mind changing the water often but I feel bad that it gets so messy between the chances I get to clean. It's a very large deep dish, enough for an adult to soak in. Yesterday I tried pushing the substrate out of the way a bit but he still manages to drag it in a lot. I thought about maybe having it sitting higher up? Like on rocks or something sturdy? So he couldn't casually kick so much substrate in. But any other tips would be nice.

I use relatively cheap high sided cat ceramic cat bowls. Easy clean, can't be tipped over and high enough to stop substrate getting in.

You could put something flat under where the water is say a paver/tile and then have the water dish on top of that so harder to get substrate in it.
My water bowl is about 2cm above the substrate line so rarely gets anything in it.

Many of us have made these raised stands/hides to help keep substrate out of the bowls. Simply tiles with glued on cut PVC pipe pieces for legs.
Here's a picture, the water bowl is a 9x13" glass Pyrex pan--impossible for skinks to tip over, even empty. At the moment I'm using astro turf type mats, but these platforms help greatly when you have loose substrate that gets drug in to the water.

Awesome set ups, Susann. Wish I had the space for that type of thing. Your skinks are living the good life!
Just love those Meraukes.

Wow....great idea Susan.
Something for sure I need to get started on.