Substrate for baby beardie

[Iwantabeardie]

Hi, I'm getting a baby beardie soon and I want to know the right substrate for him. Here I compiled a list of what I know and the downsides of each. Please help me with ideas to remove the downsides so I can use them.
Newspaper > gets the dragon black and looks bad
Paper towel > looks bad
Sand > impaction (I am only feeding it worms from a food bowl if that helps)
Vita-sand > costs a lot of money
Zoo Med excavator > impaction
crushed shells > they are sharp and can damage the beardie's insides
Newspaper clay > absorbent so its hard to clean because the poop is wet and gets absorbed.

I would like to use some sort of moldable substrate like newspaper clay or excavator but they both have their dowsides listed above. But would it be OK to have excavator if I only feed him worms from a food bowl so impaction isn't a problem?

 

[Crabs Mcjones]

Ceremic or slate tile from the hardware store. Preferably something used for outdoors as it has a rougher more stone like look to it. Easier to clean, and the roughness of the tile will naturally file down your beardies nails so little to no trimming needed
Only downside to it is if you have an odd size tank and need the tile cut. I lucked out my brother in law has a tile cutter and was able to trim them down to size needed.

 

[Iwantabeardie]

Thanks, I settled on Excavator because it would be easy to make cool structures for him. If anyone knows volume of excavator per pound that would be useful because I don't know how much I need.