Ok well I am planning to get an argentinian black and white in august. It will be a baby. I have checked the availability of everything I need and can get everything, except cypress mulch for substrate, which is widely recommended. I currently have an iguana and I use newspapers for substrate, and a compressed grass/straw substrate (which I don't like) for my ball python. I don't like the compressed straw and will switch soon. The reason I chose it was because it is digestible for reptiles. So no impaction risk. But it molds easily and I hate it. And I feed my ball outside of the enclosure in a feeding box anyway, so its not really an issue even. I plan to feed my tegu in the enclosure though, and this is an issue.

I can't use newspapers because tegus like to burrow. So what can I use that is available here?

I checked the local herp owners (who don't do a very good job IMHO) and they use either a compressed paper pellet substrate or this bagged, unlabelled wood chips. Its not named but from my search of photos it looks like those dark, large ochid bark chips. Many commercial are labelled only as "wood chips" and not saying what kind of wood.

Anyway, I CAN'T get cypress nor can I get aspen bedding.

I CAN get the wood that I think is orchid bark (not sure), the straw pellets(which I hate), T-rex coconut bark which will get expensive at the adult size terrarium.

Keep in mind this is a baby. Do baby tegus get easily impacted?
How about when it is adult? I hear that tegus can ingest some substrate and it won't cause easy impaction as in iguanas?

If I were you Id use paper towels for now. No risk of impaction and you can montior defecation..which is important, especially in a younger one. This will also allow you to get a fecal sample for the vet..just to check for parasites and such

The best I've found for burrowing animals is a Leim sand mix. I get mine though http://www.ms-reptilien.de they have an english site and you can order the leim in white or yellow, Mix this with sand, lay it down while wet and let dry. Or oder the house mix from http://www.reptilium.de. Your going to want a good 20cm or more thick floor for them to burrow in. Just too add this substrate gets extreamly hard, after drying you can sweep over it to remove the chance of ingesting loose particals.

Titus, I appreciate your post, but being in Hong Kong would make ordering bulky substrate enough for an adult tegu enclosure prohibitively expensive in shipping costs (like probably hundreds of dollars per bag in shipping).

I will use paper towels while it is young but I need to plan for the future as well. One thing I don't understand is a lot of sites recommend cypress mulch or orchid bark chips which are big pieces. However, sand is often sites as causing impaction. I just don't see how sand, being so fine grain, is worse of an impaction risk than wood chips that are 1/2 to 1 inch in diameter?

How about those compressed paper pellets? Are those usable and digestible?

You could get some dried Oak leaves, Aspen bedding, and dirt. Mix them all together.

Sand is more dangerous then cypress bark because its smaller grained and not digestable at all...the sand will build up in the digestive tract and over time hardening,creating a chroinc impaction that CANNOT BE REMOVED!! The teugu will eventually die from this. Also cypress bark has less of a chance of being ingested then sand because its bigger. If you feed outside of the tank you wont have to worry about impaction at all.

I suggest cypress mulch. I also suggest not feeding in the cage. Tegus have a very strong feeding responce. It would be best to feed it in a seperate cage. I raise Argentine black and white tegus. www.varnyard-herps-inc.com
JMHO.